Experience across thousands of RTOs
CAQA has helped thousands of RTOs customise and contextualise their training and assessment resources. These projects respond to different delivery models, learner backgrounds, industries and operating environments—not simply a change of logo or formatting.
Customisation adapts the resource’s structure, presentation and use to the provider. Contextualisation connects learning and assessment to relevant learners, workplaces and industry practice. Neither should remove or weaken a training product’s requirements.
What the work involves
- Training product requirements. Check the current qualification or unit, packaging rules, entry requirements, prerequisites, foundation skills and applicable companion guidance. Maintain clear mapping when resources change.
- Delivery modes. Adapt materials for face-to-face, online, blended, workplace and other agreed delivery arrangements. Match activities to the learning environment and retain required practical training and assessment.
- Learner cohorts. Consider domestic and international learners; experienced workers and beginners; school leavers and returning learners; apprentices and trainees; and people studying in regional or remote settings. Check individual needs rather than assuming everyone in a group is alike.
- Prior skills and learning. Adjust explanations, scaffolding, examples and practice opportunities for existing knowledge and experience. Identify appropriate recognition pathways without treating experience alone as evidence of competency.
- Language, literacy, numeracy and digital skills. Use clear instructions, accessible terminology, suitable learning activities and links to support matched to the cohort’s identified needs.
- Disability access and inclusion. Consider accessible formats, assistive technologies and agreed reasonable adjustments, together with culturally appropriate examples. Adjustments must preserve the required outcomes.
- Industry and workplace context. Incorporate relevant job roles, current procedures, equipment, terminology and realistic scenarios, informed by employers and industry representatives.
- Assessment and evidence. Preserve performance and knowledge evidence, assessment conditions and required observations. Provide clear learner instructions, assessor guidance, benchmarks and mapping; address fairness, flexibility, validity, reliability and the rules of evidence.
- Facilities and practical access. Confirm required equipment, resources, workplace access and suitable simulations. Consider safety, supervision and placement arrangements, including those supplied by third parties.
- Training structure. Align the resource with the provider’s training and assessment strategy, sequencing, pacing, guided practice and feedback. Allow learners adequate time to develop and apply their skills.
- Applicable obligations. Check occupational licensing, legislation, funding-contract conditions and international-education requirements where relevant to that provider and course. Requirements vary; not every obligation applies to every project.
- Implementation and quality control. Check copyright permissions, LMS usability, version control and trainer readiness. Review tools before use, act on learner and staff feedback, and plan ongoing review and validation.
From an agreed brief to usable resources
We agree the scope with the RTO, review its existing resources and learner profile, make the required changes and provide the revised materials with supporting mapping and implementation notes. The provider reviews the materials in its own delivery setting and retains responsibility for their use and continuing suitability.
The result is a set of resources designed for the provider’s actual learners and operations, with a documented rationale for the changes. Contextualisation is an ongoing process as courses, cohorts, delivery arrangements and industry practice change.
Guidance informing the work
ASQA’s practice guides explain the expectations for training design, assessment, facilities and resources, student support and reasonable adjustments, and diversity and inclusion. The scope for each project is agreed against the requirements that apply to that RTO.