Employability Skills in Training Packages

Employability skills are also sometimes referred to as generic skills, capabilities, enabling skills or key competencies. Australia’s Employability Skills build on the Mayer Committee’s Key Competencies. The Key Competencies attempted to describe generic competencies for effective participation in work and were developed in 1992. 

The Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in consultation with other peak employer bodies, produced the Employability Skills for Future   report in 2002. Funding was provided by the Department of Education Science and Training and the Australian National Training Authority, with the report officially released by Dr Nelson, Minister for Education, Science and Training, on 23 May 2002.

The report indicated that business and industry now require a broader range of skills than the Mayer Key Competencies framework that was developed in the early 1990s. The report featured an ‘Employability Skills Framework’ which identified eight employability skills:

• Communication
• Teamwork
• Problem solving
• Initiative and enterprise
• Planning and organising
• Self-management
• Learning
• Technology

Following consultation and research on approaches to incorporating Employability Skills into Training Packages, in May 2005 the National Training Quality Council (now the National Quality Council  ) agreed on the preferred approach of explicitly embedding applicable Employability Skills into each individual unit of competency. In 2005-2006 specifically developed tools were used by Industry Skills Councils to review and embed Employability Skills into Training Packages qualifications.  

In many cases Industry Skills Councils found that the skills and knowledge identified by the Employability Skills Framework already existed in Training Packages.  Industry Skills Councils reviewed each Training Package unit of competency and, where gaps existed or changes were required, modifications were made to units of competency. 

All new and revised Training Packages must include Employability Skills. The online Training Package Development Handbook   provides policy and guidance on this.

The implementation of Employability Skills required the development of mechanisms to ensure that Employability Skills outcomes achieved in vocational education and training are able to be clearly identified.  A Department of Education, Science and Training commissioned report  in March 2006 developed options for the assessment and reporting of Employability Skills by training providers.

A National Quality Council project built on that report which resulted in the assessment/reporting model for Employability Skills which Council endorsed in November 2006. The model is:

(i) An integrated approach to assessment, where the assessment of Employability Skills is conducted in an integrated manner with technical skills within a qualification and the corresponding units of competency. This integrated approach is made possible because employability skills are being embedded progressively in all Training Packages; and

(ii) Descriptive reporting, where short text is used to describe the nature of the Employability Skills developed as part of a qualification or unit of competency. To ensure the burden of reporting is minimised, the information reported would relate to the qualification, not the individual.

For (ii), in July 2007 the National Quality Council endorsed an approach to descriptive reporting on Employability Skills which involves learners downloading qualification specific Employability Skills Summaries for Training Package qualifications from an online repository; and, Registered Training Organisations adding the following, mandatory, single standard sentence to all qualification testamurs for Training Package qualifications: “A summary of the employability skills developed through this qualification can be downloaded from [web site URL]". The web site   contains all Employability Skills Summaries for Training Package qualifications.

From July 2008 students issued with Training Package qualifications have been informed by their Registered Training Organisation that Employability Skills Summaries for Training Package qualifications can be downloaded from http://employabilityskills.training.com.au . Registered Training Organisations are required to add the mandatory sentence providing the URL for the Employability Skills Summaries to Training Package to qualification testamurs from 1 January 2009. The Australian Qualification Framework Implementation Handbook    has been amended to show this requirement.

The National Quality Council commissioned projects in 2007 that developed and trialled professional development material to assist with implementation of the assessment and reporting model. The resource material, finalised in 2008, can be accessed at http://www.training.com.au/portal/site/public/menuitem.0216ca6f4edda8ef49be0a1c17a62dbc/.