Melbourne Polytechnic – Barbering

Melbourne Polytechnic is a Victorian public TAFE institute offering SHB30516 Certificate III in Barbering at its Preston campus. The program runs over 12 months full time, with a six-month part-time option available only to people who already hold a hairdressing qualification. Applicants must be over 16 years of age.

Training is delivered face to face on campus in a simulated commercial salon, where students practise on real clients. The curriculum covers men’s haircutting and freehand clipper technique, combined haircut structures, beard design and maintenance, shaving and men’s grooming services, together with salon operations, client management, workplace health and safety compliance, and communication within a salon team. Barbering is offered as a standard vocational program rather than an apprenticeship pathway; the institute runs its hairdressing apprenticeship separately under Certificate III in Hairdressing.