Industry relevance

Yes, your RTO must engage with industry:

• when developing strategies and resources
• when developing training and assessment practices, and
• to ensure your trainers and assessors have current and relevant industry skills.

In the delivery of all training products—including the TAE40110 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment—there are important stakeholders outside of an RTO and these should be consulted with. Your RTO must consider all of the bodies that have a stake in the services your RTO provides. These can include:

• industry clients (employers)
• group training organisations
• industry organisations
• industry regulators
• industry skills councils or similar bodies
• industry training advisory bodies, and
• unions.

By engaging with a variety of industry stakeholders, you can be assured that:

• your training and assessment practices and resources are relevant to the wider industry community, and
• your graduates can immediately apply the outcomes from their training to relevant industry frameworks.

Each RTO can choose their preferred approach for engaging industry stakeholders.

To engage with industry, your RTO could implement one or more of the strategies below. Having a range of strategies allows your RTO to consult with a number of stakeholders over a period of time.

Strategies for industry engagement can include:

• partnering with local employers, regional/national businesses, relevant industry bodies, or enterprise RTOs
• involving employers in industry advisory committees
• embedding staff within enterprises
• ongoing networking with industry organisations, peak bodies, or employers
• developing networks of relevant employers and industry representatives to participate in assessment validation, and/or
• exchanging knowledge, staff and resources with employers, networks and industry bodies.

The rationale behind industry engagement is that you can then use information obtained from this engagement to:

• help design your strategies for training and assessment
• select suitable resources
• seek feedback about how you provide training and assessment, and
• confirm your trainers and assessors have current industry skills.

By undertaking industry engement, you ensure that the training and assessment you provide will ensure graduates hold industry-relevant skills and knowledge and are able to apply these in the workplace.

There is no specific method you must use to record the evidence of your industry consultation.