- Video Insight
Mastering Compliance – What’s Changed in the Standards for RTOs 2025?
- 2 mins
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Phill Bevan (vetr Community), Alex Fuller (Cloud Assess)
So we’ve been on this journey for almost five years, and I’m not sure we were really expecting the volume of change. Certainly, even from the regulators’ perspective, if I think about our Commonwealth regulator, ASQA, the CEO and Deputy CEO said at the end of last year that RTOs need to take a fresh look at everything, a fresh look at everything. That was the communication that went out just before Christmas. That felt like quite a Christmas present.
And then, obviously, with the legislation landing, even between the revised standards, the draft that came out, and the legislated standards for RTOs in 2025, there have been huge changes.
So what’s changed? Pretty much everything has changed in the standards in terms of the focus. However, this is a great slide that you’ve got here showing that we are moving to a much greater focus on a quality or outcomes-based approach. So as you can see there, if you think about 2015 and the previous standards as well, yes, we did have some outcomes focus, but it was much more focused on inputs. What the RTO needs to have in place, what the RTO needs to do, whereas the 2025 standards are very much more about the outcomes. What are we trying to achieve? What is our systematic approach to achieving that? How are we self-assuring what we need to achieve and actually achieving it? And then how do we continuously improve, as it says there as well.
So there is quite a large mindset shift for providers and, I think unfortunately for some providers, quite a large change in approach in how they are running their operations as well in order to demonstrate their compliance for the 2025 standards. So a lot has changed, and there are a few things that have stayed the same that we could talk about, but most of the focus is changing with these standards and very much thinking about those outcomes that we need to achieve and what we need to be doing in our business to self-assure those outcomes.
Key Points
- Five-year reform journey: The standards overhaul has been in progress for almost five years, and the scale of change has surprised even regulators.
- ASQA's directive: The CEO and deputy CEO of ASQA signalled at the end of last year that RTOs need to take a "fresh look at everything," reinforcing the urgency of the changes.
- Major legislative shift: The legislated Standards for RTOs 2025 represent a significant departure from the earlier draft and the previous 2015 standards.
- From inputs to outcomes: The 2015 standards focused on what an RTO needs to have in place (inputs and processes); the 2025 standards focus on what outcomes are being achieved for learners.
- Outcomes-focused framework: RTOs must now articulate what they are trying to achieve, demonstrate a systematic approach to achieving it, self-assure their performance, and continuously improve.
- Mind-shift required: For many providers, this is not just a documentation update — it requires a genuine change in how they operate, think about compliance, and run their business.