Coalition of Celebrant Associations

Australia’s Peak Celebrant Body

Celebrancy IRC Rep report to AGD Associations Meeting May 2019

Review of Certificate IV in Celebrancy for celebrants for 2020/21

To: The Attorney-General’s Department and Marriage Celebrants Associations Meeting.

From: The Celebrancy Industry Representative, Client Services Industry Reference Committee Date: 21 May 2019

For those who are not aware, in February 2017, I applied for and was appointed in October 2017 by the Australian Industry and Skills Committee1 to the position of Celebrancy Representative on the Client Services Industry Reference Committee (IRC) on the basis of my long experience as a celebrant, my experience in staff training in a previous life, my membership of a number of celebrant associations, my experience on CoCA and previous work within the VET system on the development of the previous and current qualification.

This committee has representatives of Employers, Peak Bodies, Employees and Unions in the client services field which covers areas such as:

career development, employment services, counselling, financial counselling, family dispute resolution and celebrancy.2

My colleagues in CoCA and CCN supported my application which required two referees or the endorsement of two organisations.

An IRC’s primary purpose is to provide advice to the Australian Industry and Skills Committee (AISC) about the skills and knowledge required to equip its sectors with a highly skilled workforce, both now and into the future. Each IRC has the support of a Skills Service Organisation (SSO) – for Client Services this is the SkillsIQ.3

The Skills Forecast for an IRC is updated annually and aims to document current and future needs for the sectors under its brief. The Skills Forecast4 for this year was drafted by the IRC in April and put up for public consultation early May. I made this available to via two mailing lists – one to non-CoCA associations and the other to RTOs.

Public consultation closed yesterday 20th May 2019. The final Skills Forecast will be published as soon as the SkillsIQ amends it in response to comments

With respect to Celebrancy, the IRC will be undertaking a scheduled review of this qualification in 2020/21. An early part of that process will be for me to facilitate consultation with others in the industry to identify any changes that are required to the current package.

There are a few points that it is perhaps important to be aware of in relation to the Vocational Education and Training system.

  1. Strengthening Skills - Expert Review of Australia’s VET System by The Honourable Steven Joyce Review was made public in April

“In line with the terms of reference, the Review considered ways to make the vocational education system more effective in providing Australians with the skills they need to be successful throughout their working lives.

A high quality vocational education sector is crucial for ensuring Australian businesses of all sizes have the skills they need to support their business growth, whether they be located in cities, regional or rural areas.”5

It is a large report with a significant number of recommendations – the government responses to which have been on hold because of the election.

So until the government responses to this, we will not know what recommendations will be supported and what impact that will have on the way the VET system will operate in the future.

  1. For clarification, perhaps the three key things to understand are:
  • the VET system is industry lead (employer/employees) – celebrants as sole-traders are both
  • the RTOs role is to deliver the training packages developed by the industry
  • if there is a government regulator, their role is to ensure that VET training delivers the skills and knowledge relevant only to their sphere of influence.

For celebrancy, the MLCS is the relevant regulator in respect of marriage, there are of course other ceremonies that civil celebrants perform

  • The more we can understand and engage with the process and the greater our willingness to work together, then the better the outcomes will be for all the stakeholders concerned.

I would be pleased to receive an invitation from any celebrant association / or network / society or other stakeholder group, including the AG department, to dialogue and/or meet with, to provide as much information as possible to any stakeholders about the VET process and the proposed review of celebrancy training in 2020/ 2021.

Kind regards

Rona Goold

References:

  1. This was in response to public expressions of interest called by the revised VET system for Industry Reference Committee Representatives
  1. https://aisc.net.au/content/client-services-industry-reference-committee
  1. https://wpmc.gov.au/resource-centre/domestic-policy/vet-review/strengthening-skills- expert-review-australias-vocational-education-and-training-system
  1. As above
  1. https://wpmc.gov.au/resource-centre/domestic-policy/vet-review/strengthening-skills- expert-review-australias-vocational-education-and-training-system

There was a question at the meeting raised about why I asked CoCA Inc and CCN Inc to endorse my application rather than other associations of which I am a member. For those interested, it was that CCN Inc and CoCA Inc were much more knowledgeable about my more recent work in the celebrancy field.


Stages of review and development of training packages

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