Coalition of Celebrant Associations

Australia’s Peak Celebrant Body

GUIDE to Feedback on the DRAFT Diploma in Professional Celebrancy

Why does the celebrant qualification need to be changed at this time?

The National Skills Standards Council, part of the Australian Government’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) system has put out a directive to all Industry Skills Councils to ensure all VET qualifications
  • are free of duplication
  • focus on skills and tasks, not knowledge alone
  • remain relevant to all workers current and emerging needs
Is the Coalition of Celebrant Associations – CoCA responsible for making changes to the celebrancy training?

No. As the peak body, CoCA is only assisting in
  • giving background information and current trends
  • providing a platform for a cross section of  new and long term celebrants, the regulator the Federal Attorney-General’s Department – Marriage Law Celebrant Section (MLCS) -  and registered training organisations (RTOs) to provide more detailed comments on the proposed changes
  • distributing information to all celebrants so all may provide feedback on the proposed changes when consultation is sought
Who is responsible for making changes to the celebrancy training?

The Federal Government contracts out the responsibility for setting the national qualifications, their competency units and their assessment criteria to a range of organisations called “Industry Skills Councils”.

As celebrancy training has been placed within the Community Services & Health sector of the VET system, the agency responsible to develop and review this sector is the NSW based Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council Ltd (CS&HISC) which has a national focus.

Who makes the decisions about what the training courses look like?

The Industry Skills Councils do not design training courses.

Rather, in consultation with an industry including Employers, workers, unions, peak associations, regulators and RTOs , each Industry Skills Council determines what the competency standards (or occupational standards) should look like. These describe the necessary skills and knowledge a workers needs to do their job effectively.

The components of competency standards include:
  1. Qualifications which include analyzing what level a qualification should be against the job role.
  2. Units of competency which under the new model include 2 components including:
  1. The Performance Criteria
  2. The Assessment Requirements
One use of these competency standards is to inform the development of training courses. Each RTO makes the decision on the design of its own training, as long as it meets the above requirements.

Competency Standards can also be used to inform position descriptions and for performance management

The Skills Council staff are not experts in all the areas they cover, so how do they ensure the training matches the workers’ needs?

There are national policies and procedures that each Skills Council must follow to ensure their work in setting the national standards are relevant to the industry.

Extensive consultative is formally part of this process.

There is an initial phase of information gathering (or scoping),  which involves desktop research, analysis of the competency standards for duplication and for currency against current job roles and limited consultation with workers and employers.

Following this,  the First Draft is loaded on the Skills Council website for all stakeholders to give feedback. The first draft is only that, a first draft and is subject to industry feedback.

How does the Skills Council set the level of the qualification and why would a Certificate IV level qualification be upgraded to a Diploma level?

The job role and how it aligns with the levels as outlined by the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) is the most critical factor in determining the level of qualification for a worker.

While we acknowledge that there are many other factors that determine the success of whether a qualification is used such as whether RTOs will put it on scope or whether learners will undertake the training, CS&HISC cannot take these into account when developing a qualification. Industry is welcome to provide feedback as to which AQF level the job role aligns to and why.

The levels are set out in this Document:  Australian Qualifications Framework

Will my input as a worker  make any difference?

Most certainly. The workers “at the coal face” are the primary concern of CS&HISC’s development process.

All feedback will be assessed and the first draft modified accordingly.

Whilst training organisations are also consulted, competency standards are about reflecting the job role. Regulators (like the Marriage Law & Celebrant Section) are consulted, but do not determine the training objectives as their needs are usually only related to one part of a worker’s role.

How can I make constructive comments?

Basically these are the questions you are asked to consider

  • Do the units describe the actual skills and knowledge required by workers?
  • How can you tell a person is competent? What tasks and products need to prove this?
  • What level of responsibility and autonomy does this qualification sit at (i.e. AQF)?
In relation to these 3 questions you may make:
  •   general comments
or give specific feedback about:
  • packaging rules
  • core and elective units
or comment on specific competency units:
  • performance criteria
  • assessment and knowledge evidence
  • assessment conditions
  • work placement
  • or anything else
The Skills Council has proposed changes to celebrancy training. Where will I find the information about this proposed Diploma in Professional Celebrancy?

The First Draft by the Skills Council for proposed changes to celebrancy training was exhibited on their website on 15th January 2013 at:
https://www.cshisc.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1183&Itemid=77

That page Skills Council page is rather overwhelming! Is there an easier way for me to see the proposed changes?

Yes. To make this information more accessible to you, on our CoCA website, you will find
  1. A summary of the proposed Diploma of Professional Celebrancy compared with the current Certificate IV in Celebrancy training:
  2. A comparison of Level 4 and 5 qualifications differences may help to show how a level is decided.
  3. An overview of the performance criteria, with links to their details AND links to the Assessment and Knowledge evidence (two celebrancy units still to come) : 
  4. More details of non-celebrancy specific units:
    in the Draft Diploma of Professional Celebrancy section.
Feedback to the CS&H Skills Council is preferred  through their online form by  Friday 8th February 2013
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