The Aotearoa New Zealand education system is transitioning from unit standards to skill standards.  

While skill standards and unit standards fulfil essentially the same function, the crucial difference is their focus – skill standards assess ākonga (learner) competence against a skill, whereas unit standards evaluate competence against a specific process. Focusing on assessing skills rather than processes makes learning more transferrable into other contexts.  

As part of developing programmes for delivery, providers must have all assessment materials pre-moderated by Muka Tangata prior to use with ākonga. Primary ITO recently submitted material for a crossbred shearing skill standard assessment.  

Upon review, we felt that the assessment met the requirements with some minor adjustments to allow for difference, flexibility and creativity. Skill standards allow for a level of flexibility, focusing on holistic skills and indicative content, but they have not fundamentally changed assessment design or practice. 

In kōrero with Primary ITO, we discussed how the assessment could be enhanced to meet the opportunities of skill standard assessment.  

We want to encourage providers to ‘think outside the box’ when developing assessments for skill standards, though the material must meet the skill standard requirements and be easy to read, fair, valid, consistent, and meets the needs of the industry and ākonga.  

Based on our first review, while skill standards have a different look and feel to unit standards, the assessment procedure remains fundamentally the same. We encourage providers to engage with us at the earliest opportunity so we can better support and progress the application. 

 

We’ve developed key guidelines for education and training providers for understanding and utilising skill standards: The document describes how skill standards are structured, how they differ from unit standards, and how to design, assess, and moderate assessments based on them: Guidance for providers: Skill Standards