Gippsland Microcredentialing of Enterprise Skills – Phase 3

Project Details

The Latrobe Valley Authority (LVA) in partnership with the University of Melbourne’s Assessment Research Centre (ARC) has engaged industry, education and community to work together in developing and piloting a process for recognition and assessment of employability skills to support the transition of workers in the Latrobe Valley. The combined enterprise has been engaged in a co-design process to support the transformational phase that the Latrobe Valley and broader Gippsland region are undergoing. The initiative aims to provide a means for workers, jobseekers and school leavers to obtain formal recognition of enterprise skills which are considered essential for successful participation in the workforce, but for which there is no consistent method of assessments and recognition of these skills, even in formal qualifications.

The integrated approach the LVA and ARC offer supports the scaling of new opportunities and initiatives in the Gippsland region, through the acknowledgement, assessment and micro-credentialing of employability skills. The assessment methods are developmental so that the assessments provide guidance (to assessees and their employers) on the skills a person has attained, and what they need to develop next to improve their levels of expertise. It is hoped that this formal recognition of enterprise skills would increase the capacity of workers and community members to transition into emerging work and opportunities in the region and identify and develop the innovative capacity of the region during this period of transition.

In this project, industry, education and community members worked together to develop what these skills looked like in the workplace and piloted different ways of assessing and recognising them which offered an opportunity for people to be recognised for the enterprise (soft) skills they currently use in the workplace and in the community. The Phase One program commenced in 2019. The Phase Two program was trialled in 2020 and based on the success of this, Phase Three will commence in 2022.

For more information and to participate in the program please visit the project website.

Collaborators

• Dr Rebekah Luo, Megan Collins, Project Leads
• Dr Zhonghua Zhang, Measurement Lead
• Richard Xu, Technical Lead
• Nafisa Awwal, Research Fellow
• Daniel Jimenez Barrios, Technical Team
• Vipulkumar Poojara, Technical Team

Funding

This project is funded by the Department of Jobs, Precincts & Regions, Victorian Government.