RTO Operations
Accredited Courses
Accredited Courses
Accredited Courses
Just like qualifications and units of competency, accredited courses are nationally recognised training products. However, unlike units and qualifications, they are not nationally endorsed.
Accredited courses exist to supplement training packages because they address training in a new or emerging area or meet an established skill requirement for industry, enterprise and the community, where these are not already covered in nationally endorsed Training Packages.
Course owners must meet quality requirements contained in the Standards for VET Accredited Courses.
Administration
Accredited Courses
Accredited Courses
Administration is a core component of a Registered Training Organisation's (RTO) business, and the role of an RTO Administrator covers daily operations for the organisation. This includes being a point of contact for students and other stakeholders, and ensuring compliance requirements are being met with regards to student enrolments and record keeping.
An RTO Administration role covers requirements linked to: Student Enrolment, Student Files, the Unique Student Identifier (USI), processes for Credit Transfer and Articulation, issuance of Certification, use of Quality Indicators and general Data Management.
Assessment
RTO Quality System
RTO Quality System
Competency-based training and assessment is the staple product/service offered by RTOs. Given VET is underpinned and supported by a legislative and regulatory framework, RTOs need to be aware of their compliance obligations to deliver training and assessment that meets the performance and knowledge requirements of each unit of competency and other requirements of relevant Training Packages.
One important component of meeting these requirements hinges on the quality of the assessment tools being used to gather evidence of student performance. Assessment tools are part of an RTO's overall assessment system and are something to document the knowledge, skills and attributes (KSAs) acquired by students and as measured against the requirements in a unit of competency.
How well the required KSAs can be gathered and assessed depends on the quality of the assessment tools being used, and an RTO will rely on having easy-to-use, comprehensive checklists, cover-sheets, and mapping, and instruments with clear task instructions for users.
RTO Quality System
RTO Quality System
RTO Quality System
A business will have its own policies and procedures for the way it runs its operations. And, businesses keen on continuous improvement and growth, will also have mechanisms to monitor their performance and how satisfied customers are with them, their products, and staff.
For RTOs, Standard 2 from the Standards for RTOs says that the operations of registered training providers must be quality assured. This means the RTO is responsible to ensure the quality of training and assessment delivered under its scope of registration (regardless of whether this service is delivered by a third party), and it should have specific policies, procedures, systems and/or processes in place to ensure operations and outputs are aligned with national requirements for quality.
A Quality System should be in place to guide an RTO's operations and any of its quality assurance activities. Evidence that this framework is in place and that it is actually used within the RTO, is a requirement for ongoing registration.
Training and Assessment Strategy (TAS)
Standard 1 from the Standards for RTOs requires RTOs to have strategies in place for how they will deliver their products, and the training and assessment strategy (also known as the TAS) is expected to provide documented, detailed information about how each particular course will be delivered.
The TAS should be a living document that is regularly monitored and reviewed to confirm it remains an accurate representation of what actually happens in the course of delivery of training and assessment by the RTO.
Further, the TAS can be thought of as an overarching guidebook as to how the RTO intends to deliver its product and services, and how the RTO is going to ensure that product delivery meets the requirements of the training package or VET accredited course, and the Standards.
It would be a mistake for an RTO to not have a TAS or to have one, but not align its actual practices with the strategy. Anyone should be able to pick up a TAS and get a clear idea of everything each course entails - and then, be able to see that what's on paper is being carried out in the course of training delivery and assessment practices.
Validation
Clauses 1.9, 1.10 and 1.11 deal with validation as required by Standard 1 from the Standards for RTOs and spell out the requirement for a plan of action according to the relative risk of the products on the RTO’s scope of registration.
Over a five year period, it is expected that an RTO will have validated the practices and judgements for every product on its scope of registration at least once, and within the first three years of every five year cycle, all of the higher risk products are expected to be completed.
Importantly, to ensure that this quality assurance activity is systematic, Standard 1 requires validation of practices and judgements to be planned, requiring the activity to be scheduled within the RTO’s operations.
The validation activity required by the Standards is carried out after any assessment decisions have been made using the assessment tools in play. Therefore, the quality of those tools has a direct bearing on the assessment outcomes and the validity of decisions made on evidence to come from those tools. It is considered best-practice to confirm tools are valid and fit-for-purpose before use through a pre-use validation.