Back to the future... again?

In case you didn't get the email yesterday from PwC Skills for Australia, "This is your reminder that the draft training products (released on 11th November 2019) for the Business Enterprise Skills and Technical Skills projects in the Business Services (BSB) Training Package are available for review until the end of this month."

Why the title, we'll get to that, but if you opened up the units (get them under the "Other Resources" heading here) and read the foundation skills, you will notice (another) change in direction, actually a complete reversal, of the foundation skills.

It is pretty easy to spot, even for someone who is just as a trainer, particularly to cert II and III business trainers teaching students MS office skills (2 of the highest enrolled courses in Australia). The editor, and I don't know if it was by design or accident, has tracked the changes and the document shows them as a default when you open it.

Do you see it yet? Look to the left... "oh, you mean 'get the work done' has been replaced by 'planning and organizing, what's wrong with that?". OK, so you are new to this training stuff or haven't had to read a unit of competency to do training for the last 5 years. Or maybe the fact the language is set to Ez Zud this draft copy was written so Stephen Joyce can understand it even after conducting the biggest VET industry review in the last 20 years (or was it 30 years, I can't remember. I'd ask ScoMo what he said, but I hear he is busy with his hand on a hose at the moment

let's unpack this for you... (cue the Disney Dreamtime music).

Get the work done comes from the Core Skills for Work framework, developed in 2014, whereas Planning and organizing come from the employability skills framework circa 2011.

Are you with us yet?

No? ok. Let's go back to the implementation of employability skills into VET qualification. You have to do a bit of digging, but here it is, on the NCVER website: https://www.ncver.edu.au/__data/assets/file/0013/2407/2404.pdf

(you are getting sleepy...). Hypnotic isn't it. Sure you may just skim through, but I'll just put up some things from my skim through and you can make up your own minds as to if back to the future is a good thing for the industry...

"DEFINING EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS

The Australian Chamber of Industry and Commerce and Business Council of Australia define employability skills as ‘skills required not only to gain employment, but also to progress within an enterprise so as to achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully to enterprise strategic directions’ (2002, p.3). Their framework identifies eight main employability skills. These are:

• communication
• teamwork
• problem-solving
• initiative and enterprise
• planning and organising
• self-management
• learning
• technology.

Despite all the attention these eight skills have received, there is still no operational definition that trainers can use when designing curricula and assessment tools. This deficiency leads to this set of skills being poorly understood by VET practitioners (Australian Flexible Learning Framework 2009), not to mention learners.

RTO: that's right! we don't want to mention the effect what we do has on learners, do we?

"Employability skills tend to require a high order of mental complexity since they involve an active and reflective approach to life. In this sense, they are multi-dimensional, comprising ‘know-how, analytical, cultural and communication skills, and common sense’ (Allen Consulting Group 2006, p.12).

(2020...) Yes yes, common sense is not that common, but that's not the problem. If it were, 99% of VET policymakers would be out of a job. It's the reference to know-how, as in tacit knowledge which is created by doing, and unlike explicit knowledge very hard to codify as around 95% of human actions are subconscious.

So how can you train it if you have not done it, and only have explicit knowledge? This is why skills gained in a simulated or training environment are not automatically transferable to a world, and a lower quality of training. Unlike explicit knowledge, both the trainer and the learner create tacit knowledge. The learners demonstrate they know how to do it, and the trainer learns a new way to do it each time as Tacit knowledge requires prior knowledge to fill in the gaps for actions. So while the training package tells you what you have to do, for example, walk from here to there, the training package does not tell you how to walk. If a learn knows how to walk, how fast they walk from here to there is set by industry expectation of employers.

back to 2011. Are you still with us?

If not (oh, sorry, back to now), how the hell are you going to write an assessment tool? You've done TAEASS502, so didn't they teach you this stuff? You may need to upgrade your up grade it seems (1.13c in STROs requires this).

(2011...)

"There are two main options for the formal introduction of employability skills into VET sector programs — either embedded in training packages or kept separate from the technical and vocational skills. The disadvantage of a separate approach is that learners may not see the value of employability skills if they are removed from their industry context (Cleary, Flynn & Thomasson 2006). Embedding them in training packages means that they are integral and tailored to the industry-endorsed competencies. Learners being able to see the relevance of the skills to workplaces is central to their embracing them."

2020... Oh, that's freaky!!!! 9 years later, isn't the Diploma of Business listed by ASQA as one of five high-risk of non-compliance qualifications because "stakeholders", AKA in the real world as "employers", because units were not being related to other units (do you cluster delivery?), and not being related to real-world work... So even though the IRC embedded FSK into the training packages, RTOs seems to have kept FSK separate from the technical and vocational skills by removing them from the industry context. OK OK, I hear you. That's not the RTOs fault.

Why should RTOs have to contextualize compliant resources that RTOs paid good money for? It's up to the supplier to make things relevant to the customer is business, not the salespeople, right? So why would anyone expect that a trainer can sell to a learner that what is done in the learner guide is done in Australian businesses? Surely the SME who wrote the guide actually works in the industry (for Google maybe?) and has currency in the units they write content for, and validate, right?

Wow. Bridget Wibrow (Author of the 2011 report) must be psychic. Does she still work for NCVER? I'd like to follow her around a Casino.

(still in 2019/20) ASQA is so harsh these days for targeting the Diploma of Business, and TAE40116 as another of the 5 high-risk qualifications, and trainer competency as one of the two focus areas of ASQA regulatory strategy....

#enoughisenough. Come-on Alex and Raelene, we need you to get rid of ASQA. Imagine how hard it would be for RTOs to do business if Learners being able to see the relevance of the skills to workplaces was a requirement of the training packages!

Sorry, I forgot, "not to mention learners". And also that you don't have to be an RTO to provide quality training that leads to a qualification, particularly for small and family businesses. Does someone want to mention to Brett Hilder that if he was doing quality training people would still pay him (and pay others), so his life's work would still be in business and he wouldn't have to worry about ASQA if he really was (in reality) doing quality training... If you don't know Brett, don't worry. He sees any attention as good attention to his cause, and he will even put one of his defamatory personal attacks on ASQA staff in the comments. His posts are very entertaining. Ask him why if he had a case he didn't take to the federal court. Actually, Alex, that would more be a question for your clients.

I do have pity for people who have been in the industry for years and now don't have a place anymore. But I have more pity for those who feel they have to leave the industry after years because we are still having conversations like this. I know which one provides better quality training and can survive in an open market based on training fit for purpose of gaining employment, so happy to support them in their new endeavors outside RTOland (it's such a magical place).

OK, so back to the 2011 report...

" VET teachers often begin teaching after having worked in a particular industry; yet, these teachers are also expected to teach employability skills to learners, and it is inferred that they already possess the skills and knowledge to teach them. The minimum qualification these days for VET teachers is the Certificate IV in Training and Education. Its predecessors, the Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training and the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment have been criticized for their inadequacies in the area of employability skills (Clayton 2010; Cushnahan 2009; Smith 2010; Virgona et al. 2003). It is likely therefore that teachers with these qualifications may not possess the knowledge or understanding required to teach employability skills.

But what about the new minimum qualification? It is yet to be determined whether this issue has been appropriately addressed in the Certificate IV in Training and Education, but early reviews suggest that the basic content of the certificate is the same (Forward 2010), which means that employability skills and their teaching will continue to present a problem. Having current knowledge of employability skills appears to be at issue, and maybe overcome by the provision of professional development programs for teachers that focus on the nature of employability skills, their role in the curriculum and their assessment."

(2020) I know what you are thinking now, "no shit Sherlock". But don't forget this was 9 years before it was mandated that RTOs had to provide professional development programs for teachers/trainers that focus on the nature of employability skills, their role in the curriculum and their assessment. So why the late rush for the up grade? What trainer out there would push a student through 5 units in a week at the end of the enrolment so they can renew their visa? Do you think you deserve to be a trainer if that is you? if so, Darwin was obviously wrong.

OK, I'm sure you've had enough, but I would like you to give Feedback to PwC. Your feedback will be accepted until COB Friday 31st January 2020.

" If you have any further questions, please contact info@skillsforaustralia.com."

I will leave you with a final quote from the Core Skill for Work (CSfW) framework, that was developed to implement employability skills into the training package, and this is why I think we should still use CSfW where we live. 2020. We live in 2020.

I will also say that if you don't understand the statement "ACSF is to Knowledge evidence; as CSfW is to performance evidence", then you shouldn't be a trainer.

I do enjoy a good conversation, so feel free to comment as to why you think CSfW should be replaced by the employability skill terms, but you also have to tell me how you will write assessment tools to TAE16 standards and the Standards for RTOs 2015, because that has never been done before. Oh, I stand corrected. It has been done, it's just those RTOs have been deregistered because ASQA is too harsh... Where are they now when we need them? #enoughisenough can pass on their dets to you. OK Boomer?

Experience. The difference. You can read more about that here.

The CSfW’s descriptors are designed to be applicable across different contexts, including different industries and fields and work settings. The term ‘work’ is intended to be applicable not only to employment contexts, but also in education and training, and broader community contexts....

However, performance is not automatically transferrable to new contexts, as application of skills, knowledge and understandings in a new context requires an understanding of that context.

Hence, an individual who has only ever applied their skills in a classroom setting will need to learn about the protocols and expectations of a work situation, and gain practical experience in applying their skills in a work environment before they can demonstrate their skills at the same stage of performance within that work context.

Have a good weekend.

Brett