Australia’s national training system – also known as the vocational education and trainingsystem (VET) – supports economic adaption and productivity and is focused on delivering the skilled workers that businesses need. The VET system supports individuals gaining skills to secure and maintain rewarding and sustainable employment.
Training Aid Australia is one of around 5,000 registered training organisations (RTOs) currently operating in Australia. RTOs are recognised as providers of quality-assured and nationally recognised training and qualifications.
The Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) is the national regulator for Australia’s vocational education and training sector. ASQA regulates courses and training providers to ensure nationally approved quality standards are met.
Among these standards are requirements for data reporting. National reporting of vocational education and training (VET) activity involves RTOs collecting data on all nationally recognised training activity and the reporting of this data to the National VET Provider Collection. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) is the custodian of this collection.
NCVER is a not-for-profit company owned by the Commonwealth and state and territory ministers responsible for vocational education and training. It is a professional and independent body responsible for collecting, managing, analysing, evaluating and communicating research and statistics about vocational education and training (VET) nationally. NCVER’s vision is to inform and influence vocational education and training in Australia through credible, reliable and responsive research and statistical services. Its mission is to be Australia’s authoritative source of high-quality independent information on vocational education and training.
From 1 January 2014, training activity data (referred to as Total VET Activity), including new enrolments, re-enrolments and completions, must be collected by all RTOs, for reporting from 1 January 2015 onwards as part of RTO requirements. A one (1) year exemption was granted for many RTOs (including Training Aid Australia) to allow for the companies to implement data collection procedures as part of their business operations. Data collection for these RTOs begins 1 January 2015 for reporting in 2016.
National reporting of Total VET Activity must be in accordance with the Australian Vocational Education and training Management Information Statistical Standard (AVETMISS). AVETMISS is a nationally consistent data standard that ensures the accurate capture and reporting and analysis of VET activity throughout Australia.
Reporting of Total VET Activity serves a number of purposes and provides benefits across the national training system. It will:
- enable individuals to access transcripts that show any nationally recognised training undertaken through links with the Unique Student Identifier
- provide details about RTOs and courses on the My Skills website to assist students and businesses to make informed training choices
- enhance understanding of the training market and assist RTOs with planning training delivery
- inform risk-based regulation of RTOs by VET regulators and establish benchmarks for continuous improvement in the VET sector
- improve industry, business and governments’ understanding of where and when skills are being developed to assist workforce planning
- provide a better understanding of training efforts across Australia to assist with the development of policy and assessing interventions.
View information on the policy, legislative and standards associated with national VET reporting.
In accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles, NCVER actively endeavours to safeguard the information it collects. All entities submitting data to NCVER for the national data collections must be registered and have a unique log-on and password.
Before NCVER staff work on the data, all names and addresses of individuals are irreversibly encrypted. No individual can be identified.
Access to data provided to the national collection is governed by a set of protocols agreed by the Ministerial Council for Tertiary Education and Employment.
The key principles of the protocols relate to the need for transparency in processes and access to information about vocational education and training. In particular, the protocols aim to:
- provide access to as much information as possible to stakeholders, consistent with the protection of an individual’s and their employer’s privacy (consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles outlined in Schedule 1of the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 which amends the Privacy Act of 1988) and subject to the protection of commercial-in-confidence training provider information;
- ensure the processes used to access the data will be transparent and publicly available to contributors of data and other stakeholders.
The protocols for the collection and reporting of VET statistical information may be viewed on the NCVER Portal on this page here.
RESOURCES:
The above information was taken from the following websites where you can find more information about AVETMISS data collection:
NCVER: AVETMISS FACT SHEET (OCT 2014): What is AVETMISS and why do I have to report AVETMISS DATA?
Department of Industry: National reporting for RTO
Department of Industry: National reporting – policy, legislation and standards
