NewsVET & TAFE
Training’s fast track to nowhere
A disturbing ASQA report on training in aged care highlights VET system flaws – shortened courses, invalid assessment and limited work placements – that the regulator must be allowed to fix. By John Mitchell.
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These problems originated with the initial insistence on basing standards only on outcomes, excluding inputs and processes. But as was anticipated, stated at the time and remains true today, the techniques used for evaluating outcomes aren’t sufficiently robust to assure quality in the absence of also monitoring inputs and processes.
If policy makers insist on continuing to evaluate only outcomes, external assessment will be needed. But it seems that there is a drift to including inputs and processes surreptitiously. It would be far better and more honest to make this explicit and systematic.