Supporting documents for compassionate or compelling circumstances

If you're applying for an intermission, discontinuation, or a change to your study load due to compassionate or compelling circumstances, you may need to provide supporting documents to help us assess your request.

Supporting evidence requirements

Supporting evidence (such as, letters, statutory declarations and medical certificates) must:

be on official letterhead (where applicable), signed and dated,
indicate whether the situation was unexpected and beyond your control,
summarise the nature and duration of the condition or circumstances,
clearly demonstrate the impact the circumstances had on the student’s ability to undertake the required action,
be in English or accompanied by an authorised translation (e.g., NATTI in Australia).

Submission of supporting documentation does not guarantee automatic approval of your applications relating to compassionate or compelling circumstances. Each application, including all supporting evidence, will be thoroughly assessed by a designated decision maker. They will determine the student's eligibility for relevant applications and may request further documentation if needed.

You’ll need to provide supporting documents that clearly show:

your compassionate or compelling circumstances;
when they occurred;
how long they lasted;
their level of impact.

All documents need to:

be from an independent source or authority;
be recently dated and aligned to the request;
confirm that your circumstances are ongoing and relevant to the timeframe.

Documents you can provide:

A medical certificate must specifically suggest that you take intermission or underload (depending on what you’re applying for).
Your doctor can provide the certificate at the consultation (including a telehealth appointment). The certificate must be dated.
A registered AHPRA health professional can be found here.
Acceptable certificate
An acceptable medical certificate needs to:
- be printed on the medical centre/doctor’s surgery/pharmacy letterhead
- have a heading of Medical Certificate
- include a date of issue
- have a statement specifically suggesting intermission or underloading (depending on what you’re applying for)
- include your doctor's name, provider number and signature, or your pharmacist's name and signature
- have your medical centre/doctor’s surgery/pharmacy stamp
You can get a medical letter of support if you couldn’t get a medical certificate when you were unwell.
The letter must state when and for how long you were unwell, and it must specifically suggest you take intermission or underload (depending on what you’re applying for). The doctor writing this letter must have knowledge of your medical history or condition.
The letter must be on the medical surgery/doctor’s letterhead, signed and dated.
In this certificate, a practitioner (e.g. social worker, counsellor or lawyer) registered with a relevant professional body must state that compassionate or compelling circumstances require you to take a study break or underload, depending on what you’re applying for.
They don’t need to give details about your trauma, but they must say when you were affected by this and for how long.
If you've been seeing a counsellor in an ongoing way about issues affecting your study, you can talk to your counsellor about completing a Health Professional Report (HPR) to support an application under compassionate and compelling circumstances.
A death notice or certificate must state the full name of the deceased and their date of death. You’ll also need to provide evidence of your relationship with the deceased.
The police will determine the content of this report. If it doesn’t give enough detail to indicate how your circumstances have affected you, you’ll need to provide this information in an impact statement.
In some cases, you may need to provide a statutory declaration (or equivalent) as well as a police report.
This includes obligations to defence services, Juries Commissioner’s Office and emergency services such as the Country Fire Authority. It can also include other civic obligations required by law in other countries.
You need to provide a letter from the appropriate authority (e.g. Army Reserve, Juries Commissioner’s Office or Country Fire Authority).
This letter must state the dates and nature of your obligation and how this requires you to take a study break or underload (depending on what you’re applying for). It should be on official letterhead, signed and dated.
A statutory declaration is a written statement that you (the declarant) sign and declare to be true and correct in the presence of an authorised witness. In the statutory declaration, you should declare and explain your specific circumstances and how they have affected you. You must also state when you were affected, and for how long.
A statutory declaration (or equivalent) must be signed and declared to be true and correct in the presence of an authorised witness. By signing it, you agree that the information in it is true. You can be charged with a criminal offence if the information is false.
To find out more about statutory declaration, including step-by-step instructions for obtaining a statutory declaration and details about who is authorised to witness it, visit the Victoria State Government web page.

Quick links

Enrolment policy suites, including intermission and underloading
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