Blueprint

Continuing Professional Development at Blueprint Career Development RTO

Continuing Professional Development at Blueprint Career Development RTO

Wed, 05/01/2019 - 10:49

Author - Donna Mortlock

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a key to industries ensuring their workforce holds relevant and current skills. Similarly, in the Vocational Education and Training VET sector, trainers and assessors are responsible for maintaining their knowledge and skills.  Actually, this is twice as important for the VET sector!  We need to stay current in our training and assessing capabilities AND maintain our industry currency to ensure we provide the most industry relevant information to students.  After all, who wants a business trainer who still talks about fax machines or an I.T. teacher who doesn’t know what virtual reality is.  

Most importantly – it’s in the Standards for Registered Training Organisations - RTO’s 2015.  

SNR 4.4 / SNR 15.4 states that “Training and assessment is delivered by trainers and assessors who:  

  • can demonstrate current industry skills directly relevant to the training/assessment being undertaken, and  
  • continue to develop their Vocational Education and Training (VET) knowledge and skills as well as their industry currency and trainer/ assessor competence”.

There are many ways to maintain your currency in training and assessment including: 

  • Subscribing to VET industry newsletters and magazines
  • Attending webinars and listening to podcasts
  • Attending in-house training within your RTO - Registered Training Organisation
  • Attending the annual ASQA road show
  • Participate in formal mentoring
  • Participating in validations and moderations
  • Attending conferences and forums

But don’t let your efforts be wasted!  If you don’t record your P.D, how can you demonstrate this to both your RTO Manager and at an external audit?  It’s important to have a systemic approach to collecting your P.D. evidence in a log or database.  Always check with your RTO Manager to see how it’s done in your training organisation. 

Some interesting reading for your Professional Development

https://www.blueprintcd.com.au/course/careers-and-volunteering/certificate-iv-career-development

ASQA – How can I demonstrate I have maintained my industry skills?

NCVER – Continuing professional development for a diverse VET practitioner workforce?

NCVER – Industry currency and professional obsolescence – what can industry tell us?

What do you think?
2 reactions