CBT or 'competency based training' is the current system used in industry to provide structured and assessable training schemes.

It relies on Registered Training Organisations (training provider) who may or may not be in the mainstream of training. A training provider might run only one specific course or can run dozens depending on their registration. An training provider may write their own course and get it accredited or may chose to get an authorisation to present some one else’s accredited course.

A CBT course has to be registered with the national body overseeing all training in Australia and must adhere to a set of basic training principles. While the CBT principles do not lay down the actual contents of the course, this is left to those who design the course, they must include things such as fairness, accessibility, variety of learning styles, etc.

All courses have in common a modular system which allows students to do sections of the course as they need to or as time allows. Having achieved competency in one section students do not need to be reassessed for that section when they come back later to do another section. In effect it is a cumulative thing you keep gaining individual competencies until finally you achieve them all at which stage you are then deemed competent in that module.

Because of the modular nature and ongoing assessments it also means that if you are doing a course and need to move then to another training provider presenting that same course, you can pick up where the previous training provider left off. This means that in many cases the course is portable. If you are already very experienced or skilled there is also a system of Skills Recognition. This allows an training provider to examine evidence, which you may be able to produce to satisfy an assessor that indeed you are already competent in whatever field, and can achieve competency without actually doing some or all of the training. Sounds complicated doesn’t it? It is not really. This system allows people skilled in certain areas but who are not necessarily in the mainstream education establishment to impart their skills in the most economical way and it also allows for rapid changes. It also allows students to learn what they need to know at their own pace and at places of their own choosing as far as practicable. In our fast moving technological society this must be a good thing.