Rising to the challenges of delivering in a changed world

Quality training and assessment depends on the skills and knowledge of trainers and assessors with access to the learning resources, facilities and equipment required by the relevant training package.

Trainers and assessors who are not skilled VET practitioners with current industry skills and knowledge or who lack access to current and comprehensive resources will not be able to deliver a training product that students need and graduates may not be properly assessed before being issued with a testamur.

Implement a process to ensure that you have all the necessary resources, facilities, equipment and staff to deliver every training product on your RTO’s scope of registration—whether you are currently delivering it or not.

These resources should meet any specific requirements in the training package or accredited course. The quantity of these resources will depend on how many students you are delivering to (or intend to deliver to).

Your training and assessment strategies should include guidance on the level of resources needed per student or per group. Further information is available to you in the ASQA Users' Guide.

Your RTO is ultimately responsible for any services delivered by a third party and you must be assured through regular monitoring arrangements that you are exercising effective oversight of their operations.

ASQA has issued a General Direction and a supporting Fact Sheet on third-party arrangements to ensure these arrangements are clear and assist providers to exercise effective oversight and meet their obligations.

When assessing the suitability of a move to distance delivery of a course, it is essential that your organisation analyses the requirements of the training package or VET accredited course.

You should ensure that you have the right quality-control mechanisms in place to administer online learning resources and assessments and that the integrity of the training package outcomes is not compromised.

Depending on your circumstances, you may wish to consider restructuring strategies to deliver theoretical-based units before practical-based units or focusing on training and delivery of content, including in simulated environments, and delaying assessment.

You should ensure that clear and accurate advice is provided upfront to students prior to their enrolment and the course structure and the length of the course. You should document and retain evidence as to how this advice was provided to students.

If you do not understand and plan for the support and progression requirements of all students, it can result in some students not progressing at the rate required to develop the required skills and knowledge.

Students who do not progress as quickly as others or who do not receive the support they require may disengage from learning.

Students who are not fully informed of the move to online delivery may have concerns with the revised arrangements, resulting in additional complaints to their providers.

Your organisation must ensure that it has the systems in place to monitor students for course progress to track knowledge and skills development and assist to maintain motivation.

You should implement practices to regularly monitor student engagement through their online activity in a similar way to monitoring student participation in classes. You should consider conducting real-time classroom style activities or offer varied learning opportunities to help with engagement.

Where students are at risk of disengaging you should have appropriate strategies to support their re‑engagement. You should document and retain evidence of these interventions.

Providers should be transparent about the need to move to online delivery, including whether it is temporary or permanent. They should actively seek student consent for the arrangement, seek to resolve any concerns and, if this cannot be achieved, they should offer student refunds.

Regardless of the delivery method, you must be able to demonstrate how you have verified the identity of the student. There are a variety of ways to ensure authenticity in online settings, for example, a student can be required to hold their driver’s licence up to a webcam at the beginning of each virtual class.

After the virtual class, the webcam can be used to take photos of the student at random intervals while they are completing the online assessment questions.

Maintaining regular contact with students to check comprehension can also assist. You should document and retain evidence of the strategies you use to verify students’ identities in online settings. For VET students you must also verify the learner’s unique student identifier (USI) prior to award issuance, but ideally earlier.

Where a training package or VET accredited course requires mandatory work placement (with a minimum number of hours), for skills to be assessed in a workplace or for assessment to be conducted using specific resources, these assessment requirements have been determined to ensure the learner has the skills and knowledge needed by industry to seek employment.

Learners may enter the workforce not being able to do the job they were employed to do, potentially creating a health and safety risk in the environment. This oversight can have a dramatic impact on learners and the value of their qualifications. It can also have a significant impact on the reputation of the provider.

Many learners undertake further study to upskill their competencies for the workplace. These learners, although they may have worked in a particular workplace environment, may not be able to demonstrate the full range of situations to the level required in the unit of competency.

Other learners may not have current skills and knowledge or have worked in the specific contexts. Determining competency based on informal learning experiences can result in the learner not actually holding the skills, knowledge and attributes required.