A training package, in Australia, is a set of nationally endorsed standards, qualifications and guidelines used to recognise and assess the skills and knowledge people need to perform effectively in the . Training packages are developed by Service Skills Organisations [1]] or by enterprises to meet the training needs of an industry or group of industries. Training packages prescribe outcomes required by the workplace, not training or education.
A training package contains three compulsory endorsed components
Competency standards are a set of benchmarks used to assess the skills and knowledge that a person must demonstrate in the workplace to be seen as competent. These benchmarks are packaged into combinations to form units of competency, which consist of
A unit code is made up of letters and numbers. Using the unit code TAEDES401A as an example, units must contain—
Training package identifier: "TAE" refers to the training package in which it resides—in this example, the "training and assessment package".
The next three letters identify the industry field: "DES" refers to the industry field of learning design. Sometimes the industry field identifier can be more generic, allowing use of the unit across various sectors and training package e.g. "COM" often refers to communication.
The first number is called the "AQF indicator", which indicates the AQF qualification in which the unit was first packaged, e.g. the "4" represents the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (noting however that Roman numerals must always be used in Certificate qualification titles). AQF indicators are indicative only and not prescriptive. As such it is common to see units with various AQF indicators packaged into a qualification. A unit with an AQF indicator of 3 should not be considered a "level 3 unit", as units do not have levels. A unit of competency describes the skills and knowledge required to undertake the job function described.
The next two numbers (11) are called the sequence identifier and identify where the unit is in the sequence of units, e.g. 01 is the 1st unit in the learning design sequence of units in the TAE training package.
The last letter in the code is the version identifier: "A" shows it is the first version of the unit describing a competency outcome. Should the training package be updated and the competency outcome of the unit not change, the unit will be recoded as "B" (Note: When NTIS functionality permits, newly allocated codes will not include this—see Transitional note under "Coding maintenance").
The Unit Title is a brief statement of the outcome of the unit of competency for example "Maintain workplace safety".