Update to questions and answers for trainer and assessor credential requirements

19 March 2019

Recent updates have been made to the department’s questions and answers to clarify the trainer and assessor credential requirements under the Standards for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) 2015. These changes specifically address the requirements for individuals working under the supervision of a trainer. Further information is available on the Australian Government Department of Education and Training’s website at www.education.gov.au/trainer-and-assessor-credential-requirements.

Background

The Training and Education Training Package was updated in April 2016. The core units of the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment were updated to include the ‘Design and develop assessment tools’ and ‘Address adult language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) skills’ units of competency. The core units of the Assessor Skill Set were updated to include the ‘Design and develop assessment tools’ unit of competency.

To ensure the VET workforce has appropriate skills in designing and developing assessment tools and identifying and evaluating LLN requirements, Skills Ministers agreed to update the training and assessment credential requirements in line with the changes to the TAE Training Package. The changes are outlined in the Standards for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) 2015.

Scheduled maintenance on 11 March

6 March 2019

Dear TGA users

On the night of Monday, 11 March at 11.55pm – 12.30am Training.gov.au will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance.

The outage will affect the following systems:

• TGA Web site
• TGA Web services
• TPCMS

Thank you.

The training.gov.au help desk team,

Federal Government Department of Education and Training

The VET Workforce Survey – sizing up the sector

27 February 2019

The first survey of Australia’s vocational education and training (VET) workforce will launch in March 2019.

This Australia-wide survey will provide a more accurate picture of those working in registered training organisations, which will help with future planning and to better support the VET workforce.

The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) and Ipsos are conducting the survey on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.

The survey will collect information from RTOs on:

• the number of staff they employ
• employee roles, employment status, and any relevant qualifications
• training delivery methods and locations.

RTOs will soon be invited to complete the survey, so keep an eye on your email for your invitation!

Only one person per RTO is required to complete the survey and it should only take around 10 minutes. It is best answered by someone with detailed knowledge of staff within your organisation.

NCVER will publish data from the survey in July 2019.

The survey is supported by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) and the Western Australian Training Accreditation Council (TAC).

For more information, visit the NCVER Portal.

Procurement of assessment services from Australian Registered Training Organisations (RTOs)

This is a pre-release notice only.

The Department of Education and Training anticipates it will release an RFT for the procurement of assessment services from Australian Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) in quarter 2 of the 2018/19 financial year. The RFT will be available on AusTender.

The procurement will be for the following Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) programs:

• Temporary Skills Shortage (TSS) Program
• Offshore Skills Assessment Program (OSAP)
• Trades Recognition Service (TRS).

For more information, including the full Planned Procurement Notice, please go to AusTender www.tenders.gov.au.

Training.gov.au review registrations now closed

Training.gov.au would like to thank you for your support of the website review.

Stay tuned for upcoming improvements

Change to the level of information publicly available on VET accredited courses

On 12 July 2018, the Australian Government amended the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Regulations 2011. This amendment requires the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) to publish certain information about VET accredited courses including:

• the titles and codes of units of competency or modules comprising a VET accredited course for current accredited courses and expired courses with training delivery reported through the Total VET Activity collections since 2015;
• a description of the course for those courses newly accredited or reaccredited from now; and
• a reference to an earlier (previous) or later version of a course that is accredited on or after 1 September 2018.

This additional information will be entered on to the National Register over the coming months. As a result, course owners and registered training organisations (RTOs) with an accredited course on their scope of registration are likely to receive notifications that there has been a change to their course when the regulators enter this additional information. This change however will not be referring to a change to the course, but rather a change to the information available on the course.

Ensuring these additional matters are entered on the National Register increases the transparency of accredited course information and enables Unique Student Identifier (USI) transcripts to include information on units of competency/modules. Once the information has been published on the National Register, it will be used to improve the information available on the My Skills website (www.myskills.gov.au), which will enable prospective students and employers to better understand course content and suitability.

For further information on this measure, please visit the recently updated FAQs on ASQA’s website at www.asqa.gov.au/faqs.

While this amendment only requires ASQA to publish this additional information on the National Register, the Training Accreditation Council of Western Australia will also be entering this information for courses that it has accredited to ensure that the level of information available on accredited courses is nationally consistent. For further details, please visit the Council’s website at http://www.tac.wa.gov.au/Pages/Accredited-Course-Transparency.aspx.

In addition to codes and titles of units of competency, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) will publish a brief description and links to a previous version of each VRQA-accredited course when applicable.

This is to ensure that the information available about these courses is nationally consistent. For more details, see the information on the VRQA website