The relationship between Australian VET qualifications and the jobs they are aligned to could be more precise in many industry sectors and job roles.
If you don’t have hands-on experience across a spectrum of competencies, qualifications, and training packages, then this direct evidence might not be evident.
Did you know that when building a skills profile for a job role:
It usually takes 2-4 qualifications worth of skills to cover the depth and breadth of the job role. Those competencies and skills are drawn from 2 to 4 (at least) Training Packages And across multiple AQF levels. So, 1 qualification = 1 job is never the case in the real world. This is a crucial reason there has been damning feedback from employers and industry groups on out-of-date VET products that lack innovation and foresight.
If you were to map a career or an individual’s skills, say, with retrenchment or job transfer, drawing from Australian Training Packages, hundreds of competencies could be identified. In these examples, it is important to take a Training Package agnostic approach to cover all the skills and then map back to qualifications with evidence if formal accreditation is needed, but often, it is not.
Let’s delete the phrase “One size fits all” from our VET/TVET vocabulary and move on.
Of the 1200 qualifications, 15,000+ units, and 650 accredited courses, it is easy to identify double, triple, and quadruple-ups. It is a relatively simple process to streamline as most multiplication is in the form of foundation skills in every package (change to 21st-century literacy) and functional skills, for example, leadership, management, marketing, and digital skills.
The first step in introducing a skills taxonomy should be reshaping what we already have, looking at obvious gaps, areas for development, and heritage skills to be preserved.
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