Issuing qualifications to your own trainers, assessors and staff members

Qualifications are important. They ensure that trainers and assessors are current and competent in their fields. They also help to put a check on the quality of training provided by trainers and assessors. You may be tempted to issue qualifications to your own trainers, assessors and staff members for a number of reasons such as in an effort to save money or save the administration processes or you are the only or few RTO having the training product on their scope of registration. Let’s now understand what is the stand of the regulatory body:

The VET Quality Framework or the Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2015 do not prevent RTOs from providing and granting RPL and issuing AQF qualifications or statements of attainment to their own trainers, assessors and staff members. However, RTOs must be able to provide evidence that demonstrates how competence was determined prior to issuing AQF qualification or statement of attainment. For example, the RTO must be able to demonstrate compliance with Clause 1.8, ensuring that the assessment complies with the requirements of the training package, is conducted in accordance with the principles of assessment and is fair, valid and reliable.

We have learned from thousands of audits that awarding qualifications to your own trainers, assessors, and staff members can open a can of worms for a variety of reasons. Here are a few of them:

a. How do you provide evidence that staff did not have access to the student and assessor copy or RPL documentation before and during the assessment?

b. How do you make sure sufficient evidence has been collected?

c. Who assesses their competency and what are their credentials?

d. Where the evidence is kept and for how long? How do you demonstrate trainer/assessor has been assessed in a valid and reliable manner after the retention period of documentary evidence such as assessments ends?

e. How do you ensure the trainer/assessor meet the entry and admission requirements to enrol and complete a training product?

f. What sort of agreement is in place between your RTO and RTO personnel related to fees, other charges and refunds?

g. How does your policy framework reflect these practices?

So, before you go ahead and issue qualifications to your own employees, make sure you take all these things into account. It’s important to weigh up the pros and cons of doing this and to make sure that the benefits outweigh the risks. Otherwise, you could end up causing more problems than you solve.