If you’re a pharmacist thinking about moving to Australia, then you cannot afford to miss this information! The eligibility check process is an important step in your journey to Australian dream. There are several aspects to this process that you must know.
Below are some of the important frequently asked questions.
- What is eligibility check?
- Why is it so important?
- What the documents required for this?
- How much time does it take to complete this step?
- What is the fee for this?
Let’s discuss them one by one.
The first and the foremost question is – what is eligibility check? Well, eligibility check is the process to evaluate a candidate’s eligibility for the KAPS exam. This process also serves the purpose of ensuring that candidates are genuine and they’re not providing fake or forged documents. For eligibility check process, candidates are supposed to submit a set of documents on the official Australian Pharmacy Council website.
The next natural question is what the required documents are. Below is the list of compulsory documents that that are needed for eligibility check.
- Passport
- Photo identity card (government issued)
- Birth certificate (if you do not have it, you can provide additional government issued photo id)
- Degree certificate
- Academic transcripts (for all semesters; should be combined in 1 document)
- Pharmacy state council registration certificate
In addition to the above compulsory documents, you can also choose to provide the below mentioned optional documents.
- Resume – it should include you previous work experience with employer’s name, nature of responsibility, and the tenure of employment.
- Agent authorization form. This will be required when you hire an agent to help you for eligibility check process. In this case, you agent will do all the communication on your behalf.
- Evidence of name change – your name on your id card and all the documents that you provide must be the same. In case there is a difference in the name, you will have to provide a supporting document. It could be a marriage certificate or an affidavit.
I would like to add a very important note before we proceed further. All the documents that you submit for the eligibility check process must be in English. In case they are not in English, you will have to get them translated into English by a National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) certified translator. Otherwise, you application will be rejected.
Once you submit your documents for eligibility check, APC takes about 8 weeks to complete the eligibility check process. After that APC issues a letter stating that you are eligible to apply for the KAPS exam, if all are in order.
The fee for eligibility check process is ~1310/- AUD per request. Since the fee is pretty high, you should take help of a professional to eliminate your chances of messing up with this step.
I would like to add another important point before we conclude this article. The KAPS exam preparation takes about 2-3 months (considering you give 2-3 hours for studies every day). Hence, I would like to advise that you should start your eligibility check process along with your KAPS exam preparation. It will help you save 2 months.
I hope you found this article helpful. If you’re also dreaming of becoming a pharmacist in Australia, please sign up here. We’ll help you realise your Australian dream! 🙂
