Ross Woods, 29 Nov, 2004. rev. Jul. 2010, 2018
How do you determine equivalence between qualifications that are not exactly the same? This affects compliance for students wanting to transfer credit and recognition of staff qualifications.
The quality standard allows transfer credit, but it is up to the RTO to prove that skills are equivalent.
For example:
The packages and their developers are sometimes helpful on this point:
Some authorities have suggested that mapping comparable elements between VET units is satisfactory evidence of equivalence, and those units may be accepted. The wording doesn't have to be the same, as long as the meaning is the same.
This is generally considered good practice as long as the record is kept.
In an audit, this is only problemmatical if the package specifically says that they are not equivalent.
It was once suggested that they should also be at the same AQF level. For a time, all units were issued with fixed AQF levels, but this practice has been discontinued; in some cases, the same unit has been included in a Certificate III, IV and a Diploma. This should no longer be construed as a requirement for equivalence.
It can be relevant that parts of the unit other than the elements can be critical in defining the unit. For example, some units have very specific, mandatory context requirements. To accept a unit as equivelent, one would need to confirm that those context requirements had been met.
In this view, mutual recognition only applies to units with identical codes. Anything else is a full RPL assessment. The stated reason at the time was that the quality standard only has recognition by mutual recognition and by RPL.
In this view, An RTO cannot use the credential resulting of someone else's assessment as evidence. You can only use the original evidence of what they did for the qualification. This is based on the supposition that the other assessment might be seriously flawed or at least, not appropriate for the VET sector. For example, it might be no more than a mark out of ten, an assessment of a small unrepresentative sample, or an assessment of knowledge but not competency.
This very stringent view has serious difficulties.
First, it holds that recognition of units other than VET units with exactly the same code is impossible.
It suggests that competencies are assessed from scratch as if they had never been recognized in any way. That is, it is a complete non-recognition of any other credential of any kind for the course to which the students wishes to transfer. It defeats the basic purpose of having a national system of portable credit, and the possibility that students could leave one kind of job and move compatible credit to another. This objection to re-assessment is fairly commonplace, and has been around a long time.
Second, it's impractical and expensive.
Sufficient evidence may involve on-job practical assessment and a wide variety of evidence over a substantial period of time. Besides, the process would also need to jump through the hurdles of industry consultation, tool development, validation, etc.
Third, it conflicts with permissible RPL practices.
It's quite allowable to accept other evidence of competence (e.g. licenses, references).
In a word, use the evidence you have as a kind of simple RPL. Accept the transfer credit and related evidence.
To accept a nationally recognised VET unit, you need to demonstrate equivalence of VET units by mapping equivalence of all mandatory requirements of the unit for which you wish to give credit. Any inadequacy can be met with other kinds of evidence.
As part of the national system, you should recognise the assessment of the issuing RTO. Besides, as stated above, it is permissible RPL practice to accept other evidence, such as documents testifying to competency (e.g. licenses). The same principle should apply in this case.
If you require other independent evidence of current competence, you may be moving to an RPL mode that requires a range of other unnecessary evidence.
If in doubt, record it as an assessment and issue the new unit or qualification to eliminate future confusion.. In fact, one RTO does RPL of all incoming staff and issues them with the latest version of the qualification if they do not have it already.
What about Higher Education units? Could they be quite acceptable?
It is still difficult, and it especially affects RTO staff, many of whom might have higher education qualifications to teach in the VET sector.
Being honest about Higher Education
First, it is easy, but dishonest, to set up a caricature and then knock it over. In the argy-bargy of inter-sectoral politics, each side is in danger of creating untrue caricatures of the other. Government training bodies see higher and vocational education as being separate and often non-equivalent.
In reality, university assessments vary greatly:
Second, the purpose (and practice) of many university courses is to provide training, although they describe competence in work skills as "professional" rather than "vocational".
Other factors affecting staff
Some higher education qualifications are the best possible qualifications for VET teaching, especially combined with professional registration, for example, medical practitioners, psychologist lawyers, and registered nurses. The qualifications in training and assessment have tended to emphasize the practical aspects of instructing adults at the expense of education studies.
Teaching staff have an ethical requirement to identify their areas of expertise, including changes in expertise due to updating, further studies and writing, etc. (This ethical requirement applies equally to any instructor and assessor, regardless of their qualifications.)
It is preferable for staff to have a qualification a level higher than that at which they teach, also this is not normally a requirement in the training sector. A few training packages require it for some qualifications.
Real difficulties
RTO staff with higher education qualifications face several problems in the training sector when seeking to demonstrate equivalence. Although many of these problems also occur in the training sector, especially in accredited courses, they seem almost always more challenging in the Higher Education sector :
• Like RTOs, universities vary greatly in philosophy and practice, even when they work to the same professional licensing standards.
• Higher education emphasizes thinking skills, while the training sector emphasizes vocational skills. That is, the higher education qualification might not represent the vocational competencies and only represent "thinking clever thoughts in a library". However, the "vocational tag" is somewhat ambiguous; the AQF defines VET courses at Certificate IV level and above by their thinking skills.
• Higher education qualifications are seldom defined in professional/ vocational outcomes.
• Higher education qualifications that are defined in outcomes do not have one-to-one correspondence with VET sector outcomes.
• Higher education institutions normally use their own unique unit names and course names.
• Different qualifications can be equivalent. For example, a Bachelor of Theology with a ministry emphasis may be equivalent to a Bachelor of Ministry. These may in turn represent competencies equivalent to a VET sector Advanced Diploma or Graduate Diploma.
• Qualifications of the same name might not be equivalent. For example, an academic Bachelor in Theology might not be equivalent to a Bachelor of Theology with a ministry emphasis.
• If a teacher's qualification is at a very much higher level than that at which he/she teaches, he/she might not have the lower level competencies. For example, a mechanical engineer might be quite competent in designing a new kind of engine, but not be unable to set up a lathe to make a simple component.
• Religious institutions use different terminology for the same competencies.
University testamurs and transcripts are prima facie evidence of learning, but need other corroborating evidence to demonstrate the required competencies.
For staff ...
In many cases for staff, the simple answer is to keep detailed references or verified CVs on file to demonstrate all competencies. It is quite practical to define teaching areas on a staff list by teaching areas rather than the ideal of a unit-by unit definition.
One RTO conducts an RPL assessment of all incoming staff who do not have the current version of the VET qualification, and issues them new qualifications. This also answers questions about staff members who hold qualifications for which the competency requirements have changed. Although, this demeans their existing qualifications and creates unnecessary work, it is a best case scenario when in doubt.
For RPL
The simplest answer is that the quality standards now apply not only to VET qualifications, but to all AQF credentials. If a university student wants to transfer credit to an RTO, the easiest way is to use it for electives.
Although unlikely, a university unit description that can be mapped to VET requirements should be adequate evidence to gain transfer credit.
Otherwise, you need some evidence, for example:
Many higher education courses actually do represent vocational outcomes:
Religious and secular qualifications may be equivalent. For example, a Bachelor of Ministry or a Bachelor of Theology with a ministry emphasis would be appropriate for many community services programs. As another example, a psychologist could teach some aspects of pastoral care.