The awards system makes training quals hard to understand

The House of Reps committee inquiring into the status of VET will hear evidence today from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and Jobs and Skills Australia.

But they are not the only agencies with views on what to do about VET. While one might think the Department of Education would be glad to be rid of training policy it’s submission to the inquiry nails why VET qualifications are widely seen as second-string – the implicit status hierarchy in the Australian Qualification Framework.

Thus DoE points to the Noonan Review of the AQF (2019) which it states found,  “the current AQF architecture and taxonomy undervalues the value and taxonomy of VET qualifications.”

Plus the AQF as it stands is too damn hard to understand – there are ten AQF levels on each of which learning outcomes and complexity of qualification are specified for knowledge skills and application. The Noonan review proposed shifting the AQF from levels to actual occupations.

Which has not happened, DoE reports that “technical work” is underway on implementing recommendations, but (and it is quite a big but), “although many stakeholders agree with the overall reform intent of the AQF Review, stakeholders have varying perspectives about how some of the more complex Review recommendations should be addressed.”