Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 6:08:05 to 6:15:07
Examination of online training modules for childcare educators, including completion rates, content feedback, and technical platform integrity.
Topics: Child safety, Education, Government IT systems
Speakers: Ms. Kylie Crane, Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Senator Jess Walsh, Unknown Speaker
>> One of the reforms that, uh, have has been introduced is is the training and online training modules for educators. Um, important that that's there. So, I commend commend you for that. But I did ask you in the last estimates whether or not you had seen the the modules and whether you minister had undertaken them. Since then, have you have you remedied that problem and uh gone and had a look at the training and and possibly even uh uh completed it
>> Um I have um taken the advanced training and the foundational training. How long did it take me in terms of like logging on and doing the training? >> it takes a few hours. Yeah, it takes a few hours to do each one. Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's about half a day. >> Yeah. Um, since then courses three and four have been released followed by course five u leading and governing child safety. Uh have you been able to review that content? Have you been able to complete that training at all?
>> Uh I have completed the advanced training. There is a module that is for people with management responsibility that was released at the start of September or during September. Uh I'm yet to do that final module.
>> I haven't done the final one yet either. So I'll let you off on that one.
>> We can do it together, Senator.
>> I hope you I'll come in your office and we'll do it. it it does take about half a day I'm told um just to complete that as well. Look I think it's a worthy investment of staff and of course they're required to do it but it's important that it gets done. Um there were issues and this is a question for the department um feedback that I'd received that it's easy to just sort of skip through the video modules um and then just do the the the questionnaire at the end and you can you can get it wrong and just go back and repeat it and then you know so in a way you can actually truncate the amount of time that it would take to complete the course by even just going through the multiple choice uh you know questionnaire at the end and just do it multiple times and eventually you'll get it right. So is that been looked at? Can that be resolved?
>> Uh Senator, after the um last hearing we went back and worked with Queensland as the contract managers and ACC as the content holders. Um I if the if the question is have we stopped people from being able to go through in you know insert particular period of time here. No, because the the content is intended to be done at a users's pace
>> and you don't want to make it clumsy either by is that >> correct? I get that.
>> Um and so what what we did was a couple of things. One um we had looked at the data for for at that stage the courses that were there um to get a bit of a sense of is is what you were hearing something that was prevalent across all it was not. The vast majority of users took the same amount of time you took or much longer because you can start and stop through that. Um we also looked at whether um uh in the breakup of anybody who was going through it what I would say is particularly quickly um you know were they uh were they registered at a service were they not we were talking extremely small numbers. Um that information has been shared back with states and territories so that in their visits back out to particular providers or services they can have that conversation. Um but o overall the feedback about the training itself including those new courses that you've talked about has been overwhelmingly positive about the content about whether it's uplifted uh you know knowledge and capability about whether people would refer it to um you know colleagues uh in that sense. So, we've seen um quite a good uptake of it of that foundation course that you referred to, over 418,000 uh completions of that. For the first two courses of the advanced, we've got over 142,000 completions of that. And that last uh advanced course module, which has a more targeted audience, um almost 22,000 completions uh as at yesterday. So very good take up, very good positive feedback about the content uh and what it's doing.
>> Yeah. And my experience and the feedback I've heard is that it's a more engaging um experience for people in those later modules. Um, uh, would you go back and revise? Uh, yeah, if there was if there if there's been any feedback about how you could improve module one, uh, is there a chance to actually go back and revisit that? Uh, so that as new staff members come on board, they're able to >> I take it I take a new new staff are required to
>> new staff are required to do it and in a much shorter time frame of that. Yes. So the um ACCP through the development of each of those courses has taken on board feedback from the sector as it's being developed and research. So yes feedback has been taken on board. Um apart from the courses that have been delivered uh now there is a refresher that will come as well. So the the feedback has been both in the course content the actual delivery of the content itself and of course the the crux of this is actually being able to put it into practice. The bit that we probably haven't spoken as much about here is um this is supported by a community of practice. And so the intent is that individuals do it individually or collectively, but they actually talk about what this means in practice in that site. And so all of those elements are what should make a very good course and content.
>> And just one final question on this so we can move on. Um some of the feedback I've had that some providers would like to be able to include it as part of their training management systems. uh and there's an issue with being able to easily plug that into their existing system. So there's a a bit of duplication that uh providers are having to deal with including of course the educators themselves. Is that something that can be resolved?
>> Uh no the decision has been taken that it will not be shared uh in that way. Um part of the concern with that is about the integrity uh of it and the ability to have it and data. So it is hosted in one place. it centrally um owned, managed uh and controlled around that
>> can then not the anyway an API or something that sort of enables the the certification of those the completion of those courses be fed into anyway
>> so senator in in that respect the the completion
>> not the content is what I'm saying the completion of the
>> we we are looking at that component in some of the future iterations of the register.
>> Okay. Thanks. Thanks, J.