About

Accellier is the provider of choice for thousands of people and hundreds of organisations in Australia and around the world. Under our former name SAVE Training, we built a solid foundation on which Accellier now stands, embodying almost 10 years of service to Australia’s Tertiary and Vocational Education Sector. As a testament to this, since our inception in 2010 we have spent only a few thousand dollars on advertising. Our clients are almost entirely referred from our happy graduates and business customers.

Accellier is the trading name of SAVE Training Pty Ltd and is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO 32395) that offers a range of nationally recognised courses in education and business Australia wide through our online and face to face courses.

Our mission is to enhance people’s value through excellence in service and learning outcomes.

Are Units of Competency assigned an Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) level?

No. Units of Competency do not, nor have they ever been assigned an AQF level.

What about the AQF level number in the unit code?

There is no AQF level number in a unit of competency code.

The Training Package Products Policy is where the specifications for a unit code come from. Training Package developers have to follow these specifications when assigning a unit code. See Page 5, item 2.1.2 which says (summarising):

“Each unit of competency must have a unique code that conforms to the following:

  • training package identifier – 3 characters
  • no more than 12 characters
  • cross-sector units must have ‘X’ as the final character – non-cross-sector units must not use ‘X’ as the final character.”

That’s it. There’s nothing about AQF levels in there.

“But!” …you might hear some people say… “the unit TAEPDD 4 01 Work effectively in the VET sector is a core unit from the TAE40122 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment! And ICTPRG 3 02 Apply introductory programming techniques is a core unit from the ICT30120 Certificate III in Information Technology!”

Some Training Package developers may try to add some meaning to a unit code by setting the first digit in the code to the qualification level it was mostly intended for.

Indeed the old Training Package Development Handbook, which previously informed Training Package developers from 2007 says it represents “the AQF qualification in which the unit was first packaged” on page 15 at 2.1.1 (Coding and Titling of Units of Competency).

So you will see this convention being used sometimes (for example in TAE and BSB training packages) but it has little meaning other than representing the AQF level of the qualification in which it first was packaged.

You will also see many hundreds of examples of units of competency that do not use this convention at all.

A NOTABLE INCONSISTENCY
TAEDEL 3 11 Provide work skill instruction (and its predecessors going back to TAADEL 3 01A). The TAE and former TAA training packages all used the convention explained above. E.g. all the units from the Certificate IV were coded like TAEDEL 4 01 and the Diploma units were coded like TAEDEL 5 01.

So where did the TAEDEL301 units come from? There was never an AQF level 3 TAE qualification.

Is it possible that the original authors were indicating an AQF level be applied to the unit?

Should I ‘apply’ a unit of competency at the AQF level of the qualification I’m teaching or assessing?

Let’s be clear. The AQF is a qualifications framework. It’s for qualifications, not units. It describes the knowledge, skills and application of those knowledge and skills of a graduate of a qualification between levels 1 and 10.

Units of competency are a specification for a standard of performance of a work function. So the complexity of a unit is determined by the unit itself.

Trying to ‘apply’ an AQF level to a unit may distort, narrow, or over-complicate the intent of the unit.

EXAMPLE: PLUMBING
A Plumber’s job is often challenging and complex. Though sometimes a plumber does some more simple and routine work functions.

Some work functions of a plumber described in a unit of competency, might ‘seem’ like they’re from an AQF level 2. Some might ‘seem’ like they are from an AQF level 4 or 5.

The qualification to be a plumber is in fact a Certificate III in Plumbing (AQF 3).

Furthermore, applying an AQF level to a unit ‘breaks’ the credit transfer system and causes problems with fairness.

EXAMPLE CORE UNITS IN UEE

The unit UEECD0007 Apply work health and safety regulations, codes and practices in the workplace is a CORE unit in both a Certificate I level qualification and an Advanced Diploma qualification.

If you ‘apply’ AQF level 1 to this unit when teaching the Certificate I in ElectroComms Skills, what happens when a student wants it credit transferred into the Advanced Diploma of Engineering Technology – Electrical?

Saying ‘no, sorry, that unit was assessed in AQF level 1 style, you need to do it again in AQF level 6 style’ defeats the purpose of credit transfer and is simply unfair to the learner.

The fact is that applying work health and safety regulations, codes and practices in the workplace just so happens to be a work function of some people with a Cert I and some people with an Advanced Diploma.

Of course, there are many hundreds of use-cases for a unit of competency where an AQF qualification is never even considered. Skill-sets and single-unit courses are perfect examples of this (think First Aid courses or Responsible Service of Alcohol).

Summary

It is important that the wording of the unit of competency itself is the chief guide of how challenging or complex a unit is, regardless of what qualification it might end up in.

Some good further reading is Western Australia’s Training Accreditation Council’s fact sheet “The Australian Qualifications Framework and Units of Competency.”

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