Telco and IT courses merged in TAFE tech teaching refresh

IT training courses offered in Australia's technical and further education (TAFE) colleges and by private training outfits have been given a major overhaul.

Until last week, TAFEs (the equivalent of UK Polytechnics or US Community Colleges) and private colleges used two training packages known as the ICA11 Information and Communications Technology Training Package and the ICT10 Integrated Telecommunications Training Package.

Both have now been superseded and replaced with a new package called “Information and Communications Technology (Release 1.0)” that we're told retains the content of ICA 11 but adds some parts of ICT10. The result is three new qualifications can now be taught by TAFEs and private colleges – a Graduate Certificate in Telecommunications, Graduate Diploma of Telecommunications and Strategic Management and Graduate Diploma of Telecommunications Network Engineering – and 32 qualifications are now available. Those qualifications range from Certificate I to Graduate Diploma.

Innovation and Business Skills Australia, which oversees training packages, told The Register through industry manager Simon Cochaud that the new curriculum was developed after a review involving “consultation with key industry stakeholders, leaders and managers to ascertain what changes were required”. Couchard said 243 folk “from industry and enterprise” participated in the review.

While the new package has a new structure, the curriculum of the units taught has not undergone major revisions, although there's been lots of tweaking to conform with new standards about course structures. It also appears that few, if any, new units have been added, but old units have been mapped to the new package's structure and the qualifications it outlines.

So what's on offer? A good way to get a handle on the package is by considering the 27 skill sets it now teaches, namely:

• Application Development Specialist Skill Set
• Basic Application Development Programmer Skill Set
• Basic Computer Hardware and System Troubleshooting Skill Set
• Basic Web Development Specialist Skill Set
• Certified IT Network Enterprise, Security or Server Administrator Skill Set
• Certified Network Associate Technology Specialist Skill Set
• Certified Network Professional Specialist - Voice and Wireless Skill Set
• Certified Network Professional Specialist Skill Set
• Certified Networking Technician Skill Set
• Certified Security and Architect Specialist Skill Set
• Certified Technician or Technology Specialist - Infrastructure Configuration
• Skill Set
• Certified Technology Specialist - Graphical User Interfaces Skill Set
• Certified Web Design Specialist Skill Set
• Computing and Application Fundamentals Skill Set
• Computing Fundamentals Skill Set
• Digital Literacy - eCitizen Skill Set
• Digital Literacy Skill Set
• Hardware Technician Skill Set
• Internetworking Systems Coordinator-Administrator Skill Set
• Rich Interactive Content Specialist Skill Set
• System and Hardware Plus Technician Skill Set
• System and Network Plus Technician Skill set
• Virtualisation Specialist Skill Set
• Visual Communications Specialist Skill Set
• Website Administration Specialist Skill Set
• Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation Specialist Skill Set
• Enterprise Server Virtualisation Specialist Skill Set

Detailed information on the new package, the units that comprise it and the qualifications on offer can be found here.

The new package has been formally endorsed, so TAFE and private operators should be teaching the revised subjects and offering the new list of qualifications as soon as possible. That probably means mid-year, as plenty of educational institutions do new student intakes at that time, with wider adoption in early 2016 when the larger influx of eager new learners lands. ®