What are training packages?

Training Packages are national benchmarks for work skills. A training package is a set of skills grouped into units, consulted nationally, and accredited ("endorsed") by a national council. They are a key part of the National Training Framework and are now owned by a government department.

Their purpose is to have a consistent national training system and make training and regulatory arrangements simpler, more flexible, and more relevant to industry needs.

Each major industry area has one or more packages, and they are used as recognized outcomes in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) system. An RTO doesn’t need any other accreditation to use those materials and issue a qualification, as long as it has that qualification listed within its scope. You can be required to use training package units whenever they suit your needs. If a unit or course is already covered in a package, State and Territory accreditation bodies won't accredit similar ones that you wrote yourself.

You may not change or subtract from requirements, but may add to them as long as you don't add so much that it is unfair to the students.

Packages also have legal implications because they are professional standards. People can be sued for damages resulting from non-compliance.

Three main features:

1. Training Packages are developed by industry, for industry. The Australian Government funds national industry councils to develop and revise Training Packages. The industries consult widely to make the package relevant and useable.
 
2. Packages encourage training at work. Students can get their training at the workplace during regular work, off-the-job, by work placement, or by work simulation. Training usually combines of all these methods depending on what suits the employer, the student, the kind of learning, and the work being done.
 
3. Packages provide many pathways for people to become competent. Training Packages emphasize what you can do, not on how or where you learned to do it. Experienced workers can gain a qualification without completing any formal training if they can show they meet the competency standards.

The Certificate IV in Training and Assessment has a unit on how to use them, but we're still on induction so you don't have to use one yet. Look ahead (Link opens new window)

Home

What’s in a Training Package?

Three components are endorsed. They are:

1. Competency Standards given in the form of units (now usually called Units of Competency). They specify the knowledge and skills needed for work in that industry and are an industry benchmark for training and assessment. Units are a discrete workplace skill, so they can be used in different combinations for many kinds of jobs.

They also provide the basis for designing off-the-job vocational education and training courses for delivery by Registered Training Organisations.

These are usually very carefully expressed, flexible, and easy to adapt to your particular requirements. They have enough detail to guide you with consistent outcomes.

2. National Qualifications are awarded when students have been assessed as competent in a set of units. The combination of units normally fits a particular job role in that industry.

Most qualifications consist of core, elective and optional units that industry representatives consider necessary for a particular work role. Some generic units apply to many qualifications and even across industries. (E.g. teamwork, Occupational Health and Saftey, communication, first aid.) Where a student does not have all units for a qualification, the RTO issues a Statement of Attainment that similarly recognizes the achievement, and must be recognized by all other RTOs. A student can get a qualification by getting Statements of Attainment of all the required units, without any extra training or assessment.

Qualifications follow the Australian Qualifications Framework, and usually range from Certificate I to Advanced Diploma. Some go to Graduate Diploma.

Qualifications are nationally recognized and have the Nationally Recognised Training logo displayed on them.

3. Assessment Guidelines ensure that all assessments meet national requirements. They are an important part of the quality assurance for qualifications.

Other resources

Training Packages are complemented by optional learning strategies, assessment tools and professional development materials. These products are not formally endorsed so are not mandatory. They support the endorsed components of the Training Package.

RTOs may develop their own supporting resources or freely use whatever resources are available that suit the Training Package. Although there is a process for approval of supporting resources, RTOs are not required to get it.

Home

What can you use them for?

Training Packages are designed to have many uses, not just as national standards. To use them most effectively, you will need to understand the many ways that they can be applied to workplace or educational needs. It takes skills in planning, and in finding and interpreting information.

As an instructor and assessor in the recognized VET system, you must be able to use Packages for:

• developing a series of training sessions
• teaching
• assessing
• developing assessment tools
• validating a program
• developing learning resources and support materials

Packages can also be used for wider program development for the whole organization:

• planning a learning project
• developing a learning and assessment strategy for a Training Package qualification
• general policy making
• developing a course based on a combination of units from different Training packages to meet a client need
• developing a traineeship or apprenticeship program

You can also use packages as standards for your organization apart from any training activity:

• coordinating or managing a program
• managing personnel
• supporting organizational change
• defining particular roles
• design job classifications
• workplace appraisal.

Home

Parts of a unit

The units are addressed to you, not your students. Although most parts of the units make requirements of students, some parts apply only to assessors and not to students.

Endorsed units are not all the same, but a typical unit comprises the following parts:

1. A code number and unit name More
2. A brief statement on what the unit is about
3. A unit name e.g. Manage organizational change
4. A set of elements with performance criteria
5. A Range statement, which may either restrict the unit to certain contexts or give examples on how to adapt the unit to a wide variety of situations
6. New packages now list Critical aspects of performance
7. An evidence guide that often adds important information not necessarily implied in the element statements:
8. Required knowledge
9. Required skills
10. How consistently the student must be able to perform the skill.

About training package language

Although the language used in training packages has improved greatly, it is still often quite difficult and jargonish, making it inappropriate for students. Some of it is simply bad writing. In other cases, it is because:

• The units are primarily addressed to people who provide training and assessment.
• The units are written to apply across their industry and are not contextualized to your particular situation. (For example a "relevant person" is probably a supervisor of some kind, but your organization might use a specific word such as "team leader," "foreman," or "branch manager.")
• Training packages are widely consulted. Getting people to agree to changes can be very difficult.

If you give students any material from a training package unit, you might need to thoroughly rewrite it in user-friendly ordinary language and exclude parts that affect you rather than them. Even though the new training packages are an improvement on older packages they are still difficult.

About employability skills

These are a set of generic skills that people usually need to be employable.

Compliance is done for you in the way that the package is written. They are either made into separate units of competency or simply embedded in units and the package includes mapping somewhere that shows how units address employability skills.

They are most useful as a guide for developing generic courses for young people who are not yet employable and don't really know what they want to do.

The employability skills are:

1. Communication that contributes to productive and harmonious relations across employees and customers
2. Teamwork that contributes to productive working relationships and outcomes
3. Problem solving that contributes to productive outcomes
4. Initiative and enterprise that contribute to innovative outcomes
5. Planning and organising that contribute to long and short-term strategic planning
6. Self-management that contributes to employee satisfaction and growth
7. Learning that contributes to ongoing improvement and expansion in employee and company operations and outcomes
8. Technology that contributes to the effective carrying out of tasks

For more information on the employability skills see http://employabilityskills.training.com.au

Home

Where can you get a training package?

Almost all nationally endorsed Training Packages are available for free on the training.gov.au website, although you'll have to navigate to the particular package and the download.

The www.training.gov.au website contains information for the general public and for RTOs. The part you need is called the TGA (

You will have to get a copy of the relevant training package yourself. Here's how:

1. Go to www.training.gov.au/Home/Tga. This link opens a new window, so you'll still be able to see this page.)
2. Look for the two "Quick Search"boxes, one for training products and one for data on RTOs.
3. Type the name of the training package you want in the search box for training products, and click on "Search". You can type in:
• The whole code of the package.
• The first three letters of a unit.
• The name of the industry.
4. The link will take you to the next page.
5. The page will offer you the whole training package and lots of separate bits (qualifications and individual units).
6. Click on the training package. (The little bits are not usually very useful.)
7. The link will take you to the next page.
8. You will now be told which version is current and which others are not. Unless you have a special reason, go for the current version.
9. When it comes up, scroll down and click on the pdf version. (The Word version files are so long that they crash most computers).
10. It will offer you a download that you can save on your hard drive.

Navigating the training package (One file)

If the whole training package is one file, the file will be too long to scroll through. You'll need these directions to find your units. The features of Adobe Acrobat Reader will help you to navigate around the huge file very quickly and easily.

1. Start at the first page (the blue cover)
2. Click (Control-f) to get a search box.
3. Type in what you want to find and it will take you to the item in the table of contents. Hint Use copy (Control-c) and paste (Control-v) to past qualification codes and unit codes into the search box.
• Using copy and paste will prevent transcription errors.
• Codes are better because they are unique and will take you directly to the item you are looking for. (Non-unique descriptors, such as key words in unit titles) normally take you to many alternatives.)
4. Hit return and it will get you directly to the unit in the list of contents:
5. If the unit title is hyperlinked, you can use the hyperlink to go straight to the unit.
6. If it's not hyperlinked, click on "Find" again to go to the unit.

If you want to go to another unit, type 1 in the page number box and hit return. Then use the "find" box as before.

Navigating the training package (multiple files)

If the whole training package has many files, put them all in one folder. Open your file explorer program to locate the file with the unit you want. Then use the tips above to navigate that file.

Home

Version control

The Training Packages have a specific style for tracking changes. Check that the version you have is current.

Each Training Package has a unique five-character code. A typical code looks like TAE10. The last two characters show the year that version of the package was endorsed. The first three letters indicate the package. Training packages are now on a continuous improvement cycle so minor changes are also identified. For example, a second edition is Version 2 and minor changes to version 2 are released as Version 2.1.

Units and qualifications in that Training Package all have codes that begin with the first three letters followed by other characters and a version identifier, except when they are imported from another training package. All units have a unique ten-character code that also includes version control.

Warning: It can be quite difficult to locate the specific differences between versions.

Home

Accredited courses

Accredited courses are courses that are accredited and are privately owned. This is how the training sector can address all training recognition needs, even those outside the Training Packages.

If your RTO is authorized to use a particular accredited course, your supervisor should have a current copy.

The documents are much like ordinary Training Packages, and you interpret them in the same way. They can be licensed to other RTOs.

Luke, Amanda, Simon and Kate

Home