Partnership sees more VET applicants in schools complete skills test

A project to streamline delivery and reporting of the skills assessment has been so successful, improved outcomes are being recorded in completion times and rates, school marking efficiencies and a reduced need for follow up with students.

The work by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and TAFE SA is now recognised with a nomination for Best Collaboration in the 2025 AUSCONTACT Excellence Awards.

TAFE SA is South Australia’s largest VET provider, delivering training to more than 49,000 students overall in the 2023-24 year. 

The TAFE SA Schools Admission Team annually progresses around 2,500 referrals for subsidised courses, with secondary students wanting to enrol being required to complete ACER’s Core Skills Profile for Adults (CSPA) assessment to determine their language, literacy and numeracy skills.

While CSPA is a highly-reliable, evidence-based measure of young adult and adult skills, TAFE SA desired a bespoke technical solution to better support student exploration of future vocational pathways.

Building a better system

Feedback from users called for a more automated and integrated system to improve scheduling issues, address student anxiety about having to undertake ‘additional’ components, and issues of students choosing components out of order, or leaving a session before it had been reviewed.

In close collaboration with TAFE SA and their school partners, ACER re-designed the CSPA adaptive assessment in which student responses to initial screener questions determine the level of difficulty of subsequent questions.

The re-design ensured a seamless transition into a single integrated workflow. Work was also undertaken to ensure data transfers would be secure between ACER and TAFE SA platforms.  

Benefits for students and teachers

A TAFE SA comparison of semester 1 outcomes before the model was introduced and following the introduction, supports a positive outlook.

• The proportion of applicants completing all components of CSPA assessment in one sitting increased from 65% to 91%.
• The average time for completion of the assessment improved by 67%, dropping from 3 hours to under one.
• The number of follow ups required with students reduced from 320 to 44, an outcome improvement of 86%.

Schools also reported benefits for teachers, noting that school marking has improved efficiency by 60%, allowing educators more time to focus on other priority areas.

Learn more

Find out more about the Core Skills Profile for Adults online assessments

See how ACER's new digital literacy assessment will enhance plans for vocational education and training