Units Supported by Curriculum

A point of confusion we often come across in our interactions with industry and training providers, is the fact that training packages do not describe training processes.

Units of competency and qualifications are what currently make up ‘training packages’. They define occupational outcomes and include a range of knowledge and assessment requirements, but they do not describe the training that needs to take place.

Units describe the end point of competency, not how somebody should be trained. They are skill standards, not training standards or curriculum.

It is pleasing to see the government is exploring the options to add these missing pieces to the training package, whilst also exploring increasing industry involvement in the development and assessment of competency.

Units have become the vehicle to carry a range of information that should be in a package of training. They have become what Steven Hodge at Griffith University describes as a Swiss army knife for VET training delivery.

They are used for regulation among other things, with RTOs are being held accountable to teaching a unit when it has not been written to be a training standard.

Training packages could be reimagined to identify the areas RTOs can deliver and assess and the parts people learn by doing in enterprises. Read more about this potential solution under A solution will require improved training products.

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