Use Industry Currency to Strengthen Student Outcomes and Enhance Quality of Teaching
Last updated 27/10/26
Toolkit for RTOs
Build and maintain strong relationships with employers and help teachers, trainers and assessors (TTAs) stay connected with industry skills and knowledge.
The Toolkit is Here to Help
Time and cost can make it difficult to stay connected with industry skills and knowledge.
The toolkit can help you find cost-efficient and feasible ways support your TTAs to maintain industry currency.
The toolkit helps RTOs manage these challenges:
- Limited time to build industry relationships and manage compliance requirements
- Administration effort required to support and demonstrate compliance
- Difficulty embedding organisational-level partnerships with industry
Hi! I’m Matt
I am a Compliance and Training Lead for an RTO.
I support TTAs to complete, reflect on and apply industry currency.
Matt is a fictional character that will share a few real-life examples of how the toolkits, tools and checklists are used.
The role, responsibilities and actual tasks Matt represents may look different in practice.
This Toolkit Includes:
The Toolkits Support a Collaborative Approach to Reduce Barriers to Industry Currency
With RTOs and industry employers support, TTAs can update their industry skills and knowledge to set VET students up for success.
There are three toolkits – one for TTAs, one for RTOs and one for employers. Each toolkit reflects the role of TTAs, RTOs and employers in enabling and maintaining industry currency.
Each toolkit includes tools and checklists that support collaboration across three stages: prepare, engage and apply.
Use the tabs to learn more.
How to Use the RTO Toolkit
The toolkit is not a process you must follow from start to finish. You can choose and tailor the tools and checklists to best meet what your organisation needs.
The tools and checklists will enhance and build on any existing documents, processes and industry partnerships you have in place. They will guide your thinking and may provide alternative options or ways of doing things.
Industry Currency Matters
Industry currency refers to the industry skills and knowledge that enable workers to deliver high-quality outcomes. In practical terms, it includes:
- a current working knowledge of practices, sector reforms, legal and regulatory standards
- understanding of industry changes impact operating environments and service delivery
- understanding of changing client expectations and needs
Industry currency helps TTAs build students’ knowledge and capabilities beyond step-by-step skills or processes.
Industry currency helps TTAs build students’ knowledge and capabilities beyond step-by-step skills or processes.
Industry currency helps employers hire job-ready graduates and supports workers to succeed from day one with the right level of guidance.
The Toolkits are Designed for Users
Through research, TTAs, RTOs, industry employers, peak bodies and unions identified role-specific and shared challenges.
The toolkits aim to address both role-specific and shared challenges related to information, best practice, procedures and collaboration.
Tell me more →
Shared responsibilities and recommended tasks help you reduce time and effort spent managing employer relationships and compliance requirements.
Identify valuable expertise to share with employers to embed and maintain strong partnerships based on mutual benefit.
Set up ways of working, use shared checklists and an activity schedule to collaborate with employers and support TTAs to maintain industry currency.
A currency activity guide, measurement, reflection and application plans will support your RTO to meet industry currency compliance requirements.
The Toolkits are Designed for Users
Through research, TTAs, RTOs, industry employers, peak bodies and unions identified role-specific and shared challenges.
The toolkits aim to address both role-specific and shared challenges related to information, best practice, procedures and collaboration.
Tell me more →Frequently Asked Questions
How will industry employers partner with our RTO to enable industry currency?
These include:
- Build strong partnerships with RTOs
- Share high-level insight into key industry changes from an employer perspective
- Identify and coordinate feasible opportunities for TTAs to update industry skills and knowledge
- Enable their staff and clients to support industry currency opportunities
- Confirm participation in industry currency opportunities
- Engage in reflective discussion with TTAs, where relevant
The prepare stage includes tools for both RTOs and employers to build a shared understanding of partnership goals, roles and responsibilities, ways of working, and mutual benefit. This stage sets the foundation for the partnership and clarifies how each partner will support industry currency.
Why is collaboration important to help TTAs maintain industry currency?
Organisation-level partnerships between RTOs and industry employers ensure the right stakeholders are involved and can support collaboration. These partnerships also help RTOs and employers work together to resolve organisational challenges.
For example, an RTO and an employer may implement a brief 30-minute induction for TTAs to mitigate work health and safety risks.
How will the toolkit help our RTO meet compliance requirements?
- Strong partnerships with industry employers make it easier to access industry currency opportunities and gain insight into recent industry changes from an employer perspective.
- The industry currency schedule supports RTOs and employers to plan and coordinate industry currency opportunities for multiple TTAs over a 12‑month period.
- The measurement approach helps RTOs tailor and standardise how TTAs record, reflect on and apply industry currency throughout the year, based on organisational requirements.
- The RTO and TTA toolkits include guidance on when different industry currency opportunities are most effective to support decision-making.
We already have a partnership with an employer, do we need the toolkit?
The toolkit is not a process you must follow from start to finish. It’s designed to enhance and build on your existing processes and industry relationships. You can choose which tools you will use and tailor these to best meet what your organisation needs.
For example, the tools designed to set partnership foundations may be useful to revisit how partners will work together to support industry currency and gain tangible benefit from the partnership.
Will the toolkit help us partner with more than one employer, if that would support our TTAs?
For example, RTOs that specialise in a particular industry or sector might use the toolkit to focus on building a strong partnership with a single employer. RTOs that deliver training across multiple industries and sectors might use the toolkit to partner with multiple employers to make sure their TTAs can access relevant currency opportunities.
How will the toolkit help us work with employers to minimise health and safety risks?
- Use the currency selection tool to identify the industry currency opportunities that best meet TTAs needs. Discuss possible opportunities with employer partners to finalise opportunities based on what is feasible for employers and relevant for TTAs.
- Use the employer information sheet to collate and share relevant information with employers before TTAs undertake industry currency opportunities.
- Use the measurement plan to help employers supervise or confirm TTAs participation and completion of industry currency opportunities and engage in reflective discussion with TTAs, where relevant.
How often should we use the tools and checklists? Do we need to use all of them?
The toolkit is not a process you must follow from start to finish. It’s designed to enhance and build on your existing processes and industry relationships. You can choose which tools you will use and tailor these to best meet what your organisation needs.
How will the toolkit help us support industry currency across different campuses and training packages?
For example, RTOs with multiple campuses may need to collaborate with relevant stakeholders from each campus to make sure planned opportunities are fit for purpose.
We Would Love Tour Feedback
Share your experience of using the industry currency toolkits.
research@humanability.com.au