This afternoon I was preparing the conclusion for a TAE40122 training program, which started in March 2025 and concludes this Thursday. At the commencement of the training program, I stated that “the VET system is complex, and it is continuously changing”.
I thought it would be appropriate to revisit and identify what has changed since this training program started eight months ago.
VETNet.gov.au website
The vetnet.gov.au website has been decommissioned. For the past ten years, this website had been used to give access to Training Package Implementation Guides and other relevant documents that support the implementation of Training Packages.
Training.gov.au website
There have been ongoing changes to the training.gov.au website, including:
- Providing access to Training Package Implementation Guides
- Combining the Unit of Competency and Assessment Requirements into one downloadable document.
The single Unit of Competency document is a return to what we had prior to the implementation of the Standards for Training Packages 2012. This is a ‘back to the future’ moment, in other words, something we had in the past that has been recycled in the present.
Standards for RTOs
The Standards for RTOs 2015 has been replaced by the Standards for RTOs 2025. There are now three pieces of legislation rather than one. This tends to make it more difficult to find information.
Also, ASQA has replaced the ‘Users’ Guide to the Standards’ with ‘Practice Guides’. One comprehensive document has been replaced by nineteen documents, and the Practice Guides are vague compared to the Users’ Guide to the Standards. This tends to make it more difficult to find and understand the information relating to compliance.
Training Package Organising Framework
The Standards for Training Packages 2012 has been replaced by the Training Package Organising Framework 2025. The new Training Package Organising Framework includes:
- Two templates for Units of Competency (instead of one template)
- One of the two templates removes elements and performance criteria
- Foundation Skills have been re-defined as ACSF skills only, and digital literacy skills are optional for Training Package developer to include.
The release of Units of Competency using the new templates has yet to occur. Therefore, it is too early to say what will be the impact. However, this could be the beginning of the end for competency-based training and assessment in the Australian VET system.
Vocational Degree
The ‘Vocational Degree’ has been introduced as a new VET qualification in the AQF. Only higher education providers could deliver qualifications at the AQF Level 7 until this introduction of the ‘Vocational Degree’.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
AI has improved and is popping up everywhere. Also, search engines are incorporating AI-generated summaries, for example, Google often presenting an AI Overview when a person conducts a search. These have contributed to an increased use of AI by VET students, in particular when answering questions designed to gather evidence of a person’s knowledge.
Generally, RTOs have been slow to develop assessment strategies to ensure authenticity of evidence. I assume cheating services are declining because AI has become user-friendly and freely available.
In conclusion
Over the past eight months there has been many changes to the VET system.
Some changes have an immediate impact, such as, providing access to Training Package Implementation Guides on training.gov.au website instead of vetnet.gov.au website. Also, this seems to be relatively insignificant.
Some changes are significant and the impact of those changes are delayed. A significant change that has the potential to disrupt the entire VET system are the new templates for Units of Competency as specified by the Training Package Organising Framework. Although the change has been released, the implementation has yet to occur.
Some people have been lobbying for Australia’s competency-based training system to be replaced by a tertiary education system with characteristics like those that we had prior to 1993 when the current VET system was introduced. This is truly a massive ‘back to the future’ moment.
On Target Work Skills 