Who can assess the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment?

The TAE40122 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment has different trainer/assessor requirements to most other qualifications.

Let’s begin by looking at something which is unfortunately still a fairly commonly held belief:

There are two key problems with the scenario above.

Firstly, as you can probably tell by the language, the person making the assessment decision is a mate.

Mates are great for helping you move a fridge, but you can see the potential conflicts of interest this brings into the picture.

That’s not to say that just because they’re a mate of the candidate, they’re going to assess unethically. Most people with a Certificate IV TAE are trained to know the importance of making proper assessment decisions. It’s plain to see the challenge this creates for the provider issuing the certification, however.

Your mate has little at stake if they make the wrong decision. The RTO has everything to lose.

The second issue is, it appears this person holds only a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment.

Since January 2017, under the Standards for RTOs, assessors and trainers of any TAE qualification must hold one of the TAE Diplomas, or a higher level qualification in adult education. You can read about it here at the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA).

So what can we do?

Being a heavily regulated qualification, providers of the TAE40122 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment are reluctant to let just anyone make assessment decisions on their behalf.

When you expect your TAE provider to let your colleague or supervisor ‘sign you off’ on things, you’re more-or-less asking them to employ your colleague temporarily as an assessor, just to assess you.

Think about the recruitment, induction and staff development requirements of a Registered Training Organisation (RTO).

Not only must they find a fit and proper person with a passion for quality learning outcomes, they must vet and verify their qualifications, induct them into the organisation’s policies and procedures, then ensure the assessor demonstrates regular ongoing professional development.

There are some situations where it may be appropriate to let someone who isn’t an employee of the provider offering TAE Cert IV, contribute to the assessment process. We present the common two scenarios below.

Assessing the Cert IV on behalf of the RTO

Yes, it is possible. It should be relied upon only in situations where the usual assessment process would unfairly disadvantage the student. Some possible scenarios could include:

• The person is training in a risky environment and the assessor cannot attend (in most cases video should be used as an alternative here)
• The person is training in a classified or sensitive environment where they are not able to record video and/or bring outsiders in (in this case, can the assessor sign a non-disclosure agreement?)
• Remote locations where it is also not possible to make videos
• Any other situation where it’s simply not possible for the main nominated assessor to observe the candidate’s performance

What’s required?

To comply with the Standards for RTOs, the person essentially must be ‘inducted’ as an approved assessor of the RTO. This means they must:

• Hold one of the TAE Diplomas, or a higher level qualification in adult education.
• Demonstrate relevant, current experience and professional development as an adult vocational education trainer
• Provide copies of qualifications and evidence to demonstrate the above
• Be approved by the RTO
• Be briefed by the lead assessor on the requirements and conditions of the assessment
• Complete the assessment and gather all required evidence, supplying this to the lead assessor in a timely and professional manner.

More information on the requirements are available here.

Are they making an assessment decision? Or a third-party report?

It’s a risky endeavour to hand over the entire assessment decision-making process for a unit of competency to someone the provider doesn’t know. However it may be possible to have the supervisor (or some other suitably experienced person) complete a report on the candidate’s performance.

For example, if they were completing Facilitate vocational training a unit within the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, they may have a supervisor who has witnessed their training sessions on many occasions. This has many benefits because the supervisor can comment on things that the assessor may not get to see, such as:

• How the candidate performs when teaching a wider range of groups of people
• How the candidate handled real world challenges
• The candidate’s attitude
• Consistency of their performance over a longer period of time (everyone puts on their best performance under assessment conditions!)

In this case, the TAE assessor isn’t handing over the reigns of the entire assessment to an unknown person. They are simply gathering some additional evidence that may help them make the overall assessment decision in TAEDEL411.

They would give the supervisor a form to complete that allows them to provide commentary on the student’s performance, against specific aspects of the unit. It is common for assessors to call the person who made the third-party report for additional follow up and verification.

Not the assessor; just contributing evidence.

Using a third-party report is not a replacement for the typical assessment process. It’s just another form of evidence for the TAE assessor to rely on. As a result, they may be able to reduce some of the usual evidence required of a student.

Again, let’s use the example of TAEDEL411 Facilitate vocational training, which requires the student to prepare and deliver a number of 30-minute training sessions, to different groups of at least 4 students.

Typically the student would be required to be observed by the assessor during all sessions (or provide videos if doing it online). With a positive third party report, the assessor may only need to observe one or two sessions, or allow the candidate to provide less videos. This situation means that the performance observed in the video would need to meet all the observable criteria.

It would be risky to eliminate the observation or videos altogether.

Without observing the person first-hand, the assessor (the key decision maker and the one who loses their job if they are found to have made a dodgy decision) would be in a position where they are making an assumption that the person can train effectively, based on comments from someone they don’t know.

That’s not assessing, that’s called guessing!

The assessor cannot comfortably assert that someone can train people effectively without actually seeing them do it.

Unsure? Want further advice? We’re happy to help.

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