Summary page   
Australian Vocational Education & Training  

An overview

A framework for the national recognition of vocational education and training

A key development in the Australian vocational education and training system has been the adoption of the Australian Recognition Framework (ARF).

The ARF Framework is a comprehensive approach to the national recognition of vocational education and training across all States and Territories of Australia and involves the national registration and quality assurance of training organisations seeking to:

  • deliver training
  • assess competency outcomes
  • issue vocational education and training qualifications under the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF).

Organisations can be registered under the ARF to be able to operate in two areas:

  1. the provision of training delivery, assessment and the issuing of nationally recognised AQF qualifications
  2. the provision of skill recognition or assessment services only for the issuing of nationally recognised AQF qualifications.
- Index
- National policy
- Lifelong learning
- Skills training
- Competency-based training
- Industry-led training
- Flexible delivery
- Competition
- Public training institutions
- National recognition
- Focus on outcomes
- Research & evaluation

Organisations can be registered under the ARF to be able to operate in two areas:

  1. the provision of training delivery, assessment and the issuing of nationally recognised AQF qualifications
  2. the provision of skill recognition or assessment services only for the issuing of nationally recognised AQF qualifications.

These arrangements are based on the following two key principles:

  • a requirement for any AQF qualifications issued by a registered training organisation or any State/Territory training authority to be recognised by any other State/Territory training authority or registered training organisation across Australia
  • a system of quality assurance to register training organisations.

These arrangements commenced on 1 January 1998 and replaced a system where each training course was assessed for national accreditation, instead of registering the training organisation.

The features of the ARF are described further in the document Australian Recognition Framework Arrangements (ANTA 1998b).

These pages are an extract from the publication: Australian Vocational Education and Training: An overview

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