A Smarter Way to Learn: Understanding ITAC's Integrated Approach

Our innovative integrated approach to training helps you complete your qualification months sooner while maintaining the highest quality standards. Instead of spending 12-18 months studying unit by unit, you could be qualified and working in a school in about 6 months - potentially earning thousands more over your career. This means spending less time repeating concepts you've already mastered and more time developing real workplace skills that prepare you for success.

The Australian vocational system comprises qualifications and their respective units of competency. Most training providers deliver these units one at a time, and there can be dozens of units in your course. The challenge with this approach is the significant overlap and repetition between units. You'll often find identical requirements appearing across multiple units, and in fact, many courses have nearly identical units. For example, in CHC qualifications, terms such as 'confidentiality' appear in almost every unit. This means students will be assessed on this term dozens of times throughout their program, and that seems unnecessary.

ITAC's integrated approach maintains all the same high standards but organises learning the way it actually happens in the workplace, where multiple skills and knowledge naturally come together to complete tasks. Students study a smaller number of work-like modules instead of a larger number of units. This work-aligned method not only saves you significant time but often leads to deeper understanding and better preparation for your career.

A Clear Example: The Repetition Problem

Let's look at how a single workplace requirement – maintaining confidentiality – appears across a typical qualification. This example clearly shows why traditional unit-by-unit delivery can be unnecessarily repetitive. Note that, while this example is from an education support qualification, the same problem exists in almost every Australian qualification.

In traditional delivery, you would need to demonstrate your understanding of confidentiality multiple times as it appears as a requirement in nearly every unit. Consider how these almost identical requirements appear in core units form the CHC30221 Certificate III in School Based Education Support:

This is just one example of how requirements repeat across units. Students would be required to write a short answer response, for example, for each of these instances. That's 10 or more times writing basically the same answer. This problem isn’t isolated to this one example, however. It’s a pattern that occurs with many other skills and knowledge requirements like:

In ITAC's integrated model, students would only be assessed once or twice on these concepts, often in real world and natural contexts, instead of dozens of times.

Aligning Assessments to Real World Tasks

An additional strength of ITAC’s approach lies in its alignment with actual workplace practice. In real professional settings, tasks are rarely performed in isolation the way they are presented in units of competency. Instead, workplace activities typically draw on multiple skills and knowledge areas simultaneously. Our integrated assessments reflect this reality by combining related skills and knowledge into authentic tasks.

For instance, when working with students in a classroom setting, an education support worker simultaneously demonstrates their capabilities in communication, behaviour support, educational strategies, and health and safety – all while maintaining appropriate confidentiality and professional boundaries. Our assessment design captures evidence of these interconnected requirements through holistic tasks that reflect genuine workplace practices. This provides higher quality evidence of your genuine abilities, but also saves a lot of time.

Let’s Compare by the Numbers

A typical unit in a typical course takes around 4-6 weeks, depending on various factors of course. Continuing our example above with Education Support, here is what this looks like:

While many providers will advertise that a course takes 12 months for instance, when you do the maths, it’s unlikely a student will complete in that time, unless studying multiple units at the same time, taking no breaks, and studying the same number of units while in placement.

And here is what it looks like when studying in module format:

We have developed a graphic for each qualification to showcase this in visual format. The Education Support Combo is below:

The Real Benefits of Integration

Our innovative approach delivers tangible advantages that directly impact your learning experience and career prospects:

1. Accelerated Career Entry

Learning efficiently means entering the workforce sooner – potentially months, or even years, ahead of traditional programs. This acceleration can translate into significant financial benefits:

2. Smart Financial Planning

Our integrated approach helps you maximise your investment in education:

3. Real-World Ready

Our workplace-aligned learning approach prepares you for actual job demands:

4. Enhanced Learning Experience

Integration creates deeper, more meaningful learning:

5. Strong Foundation for Success

Our approach consistently delivers outstanding results:

This integration of theory and practice, combined with our extensive industry experience and support network, creates a learning journey that prioritises both efficiency and quality. You'll graduate not just with qualifications, but with genuine capability to make a difference in students' lives from day one.

Ready to experience the benefits of integrated learning? Contact us to discuss which study option best matches your goals and circumstances.