Review of Training Packages and Accredited Courses – Discussion Paper.

“CMPA submission to the Federal Department of Education and Training”

This submission follows on from the CMPA submission on “Industry Engagement in Training Package Development” to the Federal Department of Education and Training featured in Sand & Stone (p.22, issue 79).

The following are comments on the “Review of Training Packages and Accredited Courses – Discussion Paper”.

Focus of Training Packages and Accredited Courses.

Whilst a strong focus is on providing skills which most closely match job requirements, build workforce capacity and increase productivity also required is a strong focus placed on meeting regulatory compliance and competency requirements.

Transportable Skills
Whilst it is understood workers need transportable skills, it is not in the interest of an employer to train an employee for their next job with another employer in a different industry. The proposal that the delivery of transferable skills can assist employers to have a flexible workforce which can respond to change is not necessarily the case if all the workforce has the same set of generic skills and no specialist skills.

Nationally recognised and consistent training
Currently, this is not the case, with rogue RTOs chasing the government funding and delivering courses which are not up to standards of more reputable RTOs leading to inconsistent quality of national qualifications. There should be more emphasis on value for money, and participant and employer satisfaction.

Competencies
The competencies need to be developed from real job profiles and should lead to nationally recognised qualifications. Employers should be encouraged to provide job descriptions to RTOs from which to develop training. There is currently too much focus on generic skills. It is also very important there is a consistent assessment of competency across Australia.

The level of prescription and oversight of competencies, skills and qualifications included in the national system should be dependent on the level of risk attached to the job profile. For example, the level of risk associated with operating a haul truck in the quarry industry from a safety and capital perspective would be much greater than for office administration.

Flexibility of Qualifications
The qualifications are not flexible enough from the perspective that training needs to be developed from real job profiles and this needs to be reflected in the qualification which is attained. Too much emphasis has been placed on providing support material to RTOs.

Training Outcomes
There is not enough focus on training outcomes in that, under the current system, a qualification can be obtained in Certificate II/III surface extraction operations but the candidate would not necessarily be deemed competent by the employer in operating mobile plant on successful completion of the course. The focus should be more on assuring the assessment demonstrates competencies and performance which meet the industry and employer requirements. This should translate into industry having a stronger role in the quality assurance of student assessment for training developed from real job profiles.

The employer and the employee should have input into the final approval: if they are not satisfied then the employee has not successfully completed the training.

Changing the training system
With respect to consideration of changing the system; decisions should be based on data which support existing successes or failures.

Conclusion
Currently, the training packages are not meeting the needs of the construction material industry in Victoria. A stronger focus needs to be on providing training developed from real job profiles that leads to an increase in productivity and satisfies competency requirements. Additionally this training (developed from real job profiles) needs to be a nationally recognised qualification and have access to government funding irrespective of previous training.

The CMPA is committed to assisting the Government to develop training package development and maintenance requirements which are industry driven, bereft of red-tape, timely and nimble enough to keep the industry’s skilling needs up to date, and futures oriented.

The full submission will be made available on www.cmpavic.asn.au.

You must be logged in to post a comment Login