I was up Shepparton way yesterday taking part in a class for my Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and the teacher who led the class came to mention Skills Stores, an initiative that has been set up in Victoria, Australia to enable those with skills but not necessarily any formal training to be able to gain pieces of paper and therefore get up skilled in their workforce.

By the sounds of things, you can visit one of these skills stores throughout Victoria – free of charge – and through the use of a program on their computers, you can enter details regarding your knowledge which will assess which skills you have and once all of these are assessed, the program compiles a list of qualifications you could have based on your skills knowledge. Or perhaps a qualification you have the skills and knowledge for excluding a subject or two.

If this is the case, then you can choose to partake in those subjects at a Registered Training Office and get these marked off as well as the subjects you have already shown knowledge in. This is known as Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) or Recognition of Current Competency (RCC).

Although the assessment is free, there will most likely be costs involved to get these subjects/skills marked off but at a fraction of the cost it would take you to actually partake in a full or part time to course to get the piece of paper. Also, this is a more time efficient way to gain a piece of paper.

This has been introduced to give those who have been in the industry a while a chance to gain a formal qualification or for those who perhaps have been out of the workforce for a period of time but have the knowledge and need a piece of paper to gain employment. For example, perhaps you’ve been at home raising children and also looking after the family’s horses in this time.

Chances are you have good time and management skills (dealing with a family and looking after horses) as well as the practical and theoretical knowledge to competently care for horses.

As the children go to school you decide you want some part time work with horses but need a piece of paper to prove your knowledge and skills. You could visit a skills store and perhaps have already acquired enough experience and knowledge for a Certificate II, III, IV or Diploma or be short by only a few subjects that could easily be acquired before getting a piece of paper that could put you back out in the workforce, doing something you enjoy and earning money for it.

Some sites worth a look if you think this could be for you:
http://www.otte.vic.gov.au/skillsstores/ – Office of Training and Tertiary Education
http://www.skillsstore.com.au/

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tag: course, training, australia, education, upskilling, career, qualification