About The ITSE and SkillsOne

Our Mission

The Institute for Trade Skills Excellence promotes and advances learning, teaching and training in Australian trades education to become a career choice.

Our strategies

The Institute for Trade Skills Excellence will achieve its vision and purpose through:

Developing strategies to improve the profile and status of trades and encourage the recognition of the importance of trades in the general community;
Recognising high performing Registered Training Organisations (RTO's) with preferred provider status;
Fostering and recognising excellent standards and teaching in trades education and training.

These strategies will focus on areas with skills shortages represented by eight Industry Reference Groups. These are:

Delivering to our Objectives

1. Improve the profile and status of trades

The Institute launched SkillsOne.com.au and SkillsOne Television in July They have been established to support initiatives to improve the profile and status of trades in the general community. These activities contribute to the Australian Government’s effort to change cultural values in relation to traditional trades training among employers, training providers and the general community.

2. Recognising high performing Registered Training Organisations

The Institute has developed a program that will recognise high performing RTO's with a Star Rating Scheme. It is a voluntary scheme to support employers and provide guidance in the Vocational Educational & Training (VET) market place. The Star Rating Scheme is a mechanism through which industry can endorse or rate the quality of training and assessment of the various industry-based areas of a training provider. The rating will focus on excellence not compliance.

3. Rewarding excellence in teaching in trades education

There are various ways in which excellence is recognised in Australian VET, such as National Training Awards recognising outstanding achievements by apprentices and trainees, training provision, successful employers and so on. Further, each industry awards excellence through industry awards nights, mainly focused on employers and employees.

While the awards landscape is crowded, there are very few awards in any industry which recognise excellent trade skills teachers: in most industries there are none. The Institute has developed Excellence in Teaching Awards Guidelines to foster and recognise excellent standards in trades education and training.

The Institute launched a number of major initiatives to achieve these strategies in July 2007. One of them being a digital multi-media platform of television and website. This innovative platform features engaging television and web programming that focuses on people who are passionate about what they do, and the exciting career opportunities available across many industries and the skills in high-demand in the 21st century.

The Institute for Trade Skills Excellence was established with funding from the Australian Government and is a partnership between the Government and Australian Buisness to promote and advance learning, teaching and training in Australian trades education.

The Institute is led by industry. Key stakeholders include the Australian Chamber of Commerce dIndustry (ACCI). Australian Industry Group (Airoup) and National Farmers Federation (NFF).