There are no minimum qualifications required of school chaplains, a Senate hearing has heard.
Labor fulfilled its election promise to spend $222 million extending the life of the national school chaplaincy program by three years in last month's federal budget.
The money will assist schools that already have chaplains or secular pastoral care workers keep their services, and help 1000 extra institutions access the scheme until the end of 2014.
Answering questions on the program in Senate estimates sessions on Thursday, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations said the chaplains were not required to have any minimum training qualifications before starting work.
"There are no minimum qualifications but the larger chaplaincy provider organisations have their own standards," a departmental official told the upper house committee.
"There are levels of qualifications that are specified by some of the larger chaplaincy provider organisations."
The official said these qualifications ranged from TAFE degrees in youth work to completion of theology studies degrees.
Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said it was a surprising revelation.
"With no minimum standards required by the federal government, students who need help for their particular query, such as sexuality, won't get the support they need from an appropriately qualified person," she said.
A departmental official told the hearing there had been a "relatively small number" of complaints about the program over the years and most were either about particular chaplains or the nature of the program itself.
"The sorts of things we've had complaints about are people stepping beyond their bounds, alleged counselling rather than pastoral care from people who aren't qualified to counsel, a range of things about... misconduct, some allegations that go to proselytising," the official said.
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