I was recently invited to look at the new Training.gov.au website which is due for release this year. While it won't win any beauty contests it will certainly be a welcome change from the aging National Training Information Service (NTIS.gov.au) website.

Here's a screen-shot: 

I found Training.gov.au easy to navigate and quite powerful in its ability to retrieve and sort information about Training Packages, RTOs, courses/qualifications and other VET related information.

NTIS commenced in 1998 when the Australian Training Sector was comparatively much smaller. VET sector professionals have persevered with the website while it struggled to dish out responses the thousands of queries it received daily. It is not uncommon to face an error or unexpected search results.

The training.gov.au (TGA) website was released in the second half of 2011.

The aim of the TGA project is to deliver a website that underpins national and jurisdictional legislation, support vocational education and training policy, and deliver processes and information services for the national training system.

The TGA focuses on product delivery in two areas:

• A national register that contains the authoritative information about registered training organisations (RTOs), recognised training products and the approved scope of each RTO to deliver nationally recognised training as required in national and jurisdictional legislation 
• An application through which authoring, endorsement and publication of training packages can occur in accordance with policies and practices established by the National Quality Council.

TGA will replace the existing National Training Information Service with a collaboratively-developed, modern and extensible solution that is flexible enough to accommodate emerging policy changes.

The TGA project is progressing on schedule. The Training Package Content Management System, which will enable Industry Skills Councils (ISCs) to author, endorse and publish training packages, has been developed and tested by the ISCs.