New Australian Construction White Card Course Assessment Requirements Announced

Jan 20, 2017

Bureaucratic and demeaning changes have quietly been made to the assessment requirements of Australia's mandatory White Card course by government appointed bodies, resulting in significantly reduced student access to this important safety course.

Brisbane, Australia - January 20, 2017 /PressCable/ —

Recently the requirements for a mandatory safety course in the Australian Construction Industry were quietly changed with little announcement, and with concerning access issues for thousands of Australians. The course is known as the White Card and to hold this Card is mandatory for anyone entering or working on a construction site – it is not possible to work on a construction site without having one of these, or a previous equivalent.

The primary changes affect the assessment component of the course, which will now require the Registered Training Organisation (RTO – private training organisations who administer the course) to get all trainees to “demonstrate competence” in fitting basic “Personal Protective Equipment” (PPE). This includes the student showing the trainer that he or she can:

– Put on a hard hat – Fit a pair of safety goggles – Put on a Visy jacket, and – Put on ear muffs

To say this is a bureaucratic, ridiculous and demeaning waste of time and resources is an understatement!

But what are the implications of this change? It is estimated that over 90% of all White Card courses in Australia are currently done online, since the introduction and nationalisation of the White Card course in 2009. This has meant that:

– The course is cheaper than previously – The course is much more convenient than having to attend a classroom – The course is much more accessible for rural and remote students who otherwise might have to travel extensively to find a classroom based course.

– The changes to the assessment process now requiring all RTO’s to have on hand relevant PPE so that students can demonstrate their “competence” will undoubtedly make it much more impractical to deliver the course online.

Whilst officials state that the new course requirements “do not preclude” online training, and do allow for “live video recording of the student fitting PPE”, clearly this ridiculous requirement is going to make the online process much harder to for online RTO’s deliver and many will not be able to, or will not bother, and thus this represents a step back into the 90’s for the Australian construction training industry, as well as a kick in the face for those not living near a classroom based training facility – especially of course, disadvantaging the countries’ rural and remote residents.

Peter Cutforth, Director of online training RTO Urban E-Learning Pty Ltd said: “The process through which the previous “Industry Skills Council” and its 2016 replacement “Service Skills Organisation” arrived at these new requirements over several years has been fraught with poor process, flawed consultation, seeming conflicts of interest, and lack of transparency.”

Cutforth understands that Safe Work Australia do not support the changes and he called for “an immediate review into the situation by the relevant Federal Ministers”.

He said: “It’s hard not to suspect that the interests of the powerful construction Trade Unions are at play here, as they have traditionally offered expensive Face-to-face White Card courses, particularly in NSW, and thus this change will likely bolster the revenues into this old school modality of training.”

Cutforth called for “construction company leaders to lobby for the antiquated changes to be reversed before they need to take affect in early December 2017”.

Contact Info:
Name: Peter
Organization: Urban E-Learning
Address: PO Box 575 SPRING HILL, Brisbane, 4000 Australia

For more information, please visit https://www.urbanelearning.com/rto-courses/whitecard-online/

Source: MarketersMedia

Release ID: 163139