Validation & Moderation Services

Issues that may negatively affect your audit:

• Your assessment does not address all requirements of the packaging rules

• You do not gather sufficient valid evidence for competency assessment

• inappropriate or lack of simulated environments

• The authenticity of assessment, particularly in distance and online delivery.

It is vital that RTOs undertake their validation and moderation process as it is a crucial part of meeting learner’s needs and quality assurance requirements of Standard 1 and 2 of the Standards for RTOs 2015.

In meeting student’s needs and the quality assurance, RTOs are to bound by Clauses 1.9 – 1.11 of the Standards for RTOs 2015:

Clause 1.9 (Validation)

‘RTO implements a plan for ongoing systematic validation of assessment practices and judgements that includes for each training product on the RTO’s scope of registration

1. when assessment validation will occur;

2. which training products will be the focus of the validation;

3. who will lead and participate in validation activities;

4. how the outcomes of these activities will be documented and acted upon.’

​Validation is a quality assurance process.

Moderation is a quality control process where assessors “moderate” their assessment decisions and come to an agreed position about competence of a candidate.

The outcome of Validation is improvement recommendations future improvements.

The outcome of moderation may be adjustments to the assessor’s decision.

Clause 1.10 requires:

• Each training product is validated at least once every five years,

• At least 50% of products validated within the first three years of each five year cycle.

Clause 1.11 requires:

Validation is undertaken by one or more persons who are not directly involved in the delivery and assessment of the training product being validated,

who collectively have:

1. current Certificate IV in Training and Assessment

2. vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the assessment being validated;

3. current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning; and

4. Industry experts may be involved to ensure there is the combination of expertise set out in (a) to (c) above.

Why you need us to conduct independent validation?

We provide this service to RTO’s, TAFE’s and other educational institutions. In some cases, we have found that the validations process is non-compliant. Our experience has shown that RTOs do not comply because they do not address all requirements of the packaging rules, do not gather sufficient valid evidence for competency assessment, they do not have complaint learning and assessment resources and lack authentic assessment, particularly in distance and online delivery.

Important information if you deliver any AQF qualification or assessor skill set from the Training and Education Training Package:

From 1 January 2016, to deliver any AQF qualification or assessor skill set from the Training and Education Training Package (or its successor), your RTO must have undergone an independent validation of its assessment system, tools, processes and outcomes in accordance with the requirements contained in Schedule 2 (and the definitions of independent validation and validation).