Key items to look out for (Part 4B)
Part 4A looked at assessment system and tools, industry engagement, validation and trainer and assessor files. This first article focuses on the remaining items to look a bit more closely into:
- Trainer and student feedback
- Course information and outlines
- Policies and procedures
- Sample student files
- Complaints and appeals.
Feedback
- Trainer and student feedback
- Quality Indicators
- Validation
- Complaints and grievances
Consider the following:
Have you got evidence that you are using feedback and evaluation to improve your training and assessment?
Have you used quality indicator data to make improvements?
Have you collected feedback from students and trainers and acted on this to make improvements?
Have you acted on validation findings to make improvements?
Complaints and appeals, or even grievances. Have you used this feedback to improve and make sure same thing doesn’t happen again (where possible)?
Course information/Course outlines
Review course information and course outlines provided to students before enrolment.
Make sure you are telling the students what they need to know prior to enrolment to make an informed decision.
Refer back to Clause 4.1 and check off against the standards compared to your course outlines/ information.
Consider the following:
- Is the information accurate and in line with the TAS?
- Does this information align with information on your website?
- If you have brokers/ agents etc – what information are they using to ‘sell; the course. Review their websites, make sure they are doing things in line with your agreements, and the standards.
Policies and Procedures
- Review your policies and procedures.
- Make sure they reflect what you actually do.
- If an auditor ‘tests’ a policy/ procedure during the audit, will they find that what you say you do, you actually do?
- Test a few of your policies and procedures yourself.
- Review policies and procedures in line with recent user guide, fact sheets, industry updates.
- Do staff know about and use the policies and procedures? Make them useful!
Sample student files
Choose a sample of student files from a range of qualifications. Depending on the size of your scope and volume of enrolments. If you have a larger number of enrolments in a particular qual, choose a few more files from that qualification so your sample size is a good indicator.
When looking a student files check:
- Has enrolment occurred in line with procedures?
- Have fees been issued correctly. Has the student signed their student agreement (or terms/ conditions etc)
- Has training delivery occurred as described in the TAS?
- Have assessments been assessed in line with the TAS? If something different has occurred, follow it through and find out why.
- Compare assessment answers to those in the marking guide. Are decisions made in line with what’s expected? This is a big one as when you do this, you may find your marking guide needs adjusting, or you may find you need to go back to your trainers and assessors and make sure they are using the marking guide to assess.
- Has the trainer filled in assessment records properly? Have they signed, dated, been clear about their outcomes etc.
- Has the certification documents (qualification/record of results) been issued within 30 days? Is it compliant with AQF?
Complaints and Appeals
We’ve never had any complaints – I often hear this. Which is great. However most RTOs would have had some sort of student grievance. Maybe it didn’t turn into formal complaint, however it’s a good idea to document what you did when you had a student who was concerned about something.
Good idea to document grievances/ issues / concerns and how they were dealt with.
Are there examples of when you have told a student they may make a formal complaint?
If you have had some complaints, make sure these are documented appropriately, in line with policy. Test that the way the complaint was handled, is in line with policy and procedure.
In conclusion
Preparing for your RTO’s re-registration can be a big task so the best thing to do is to start early and be prepared.
A good approach is to go through your RTO systematically to check what you think is happening, is actually happening. To identify any discrepancies, run tests between your documents and what is actually happening.
It’s also a good idea to get your team involved and to assign responsibilities.