Career education counsellors from NSW TAFE took part in the program, which condensed the course load from a year to a six-week intensive.
RMIT Senior Lecturer Dr Kathleen Gregory led the development of the accelerated program, oversaw its delivery and was part of the teaching team.
She said it was a collaborative effort to structure the online program in a way that could be completed in the short time frame, working closely with NSW TAFE to tailor the offering to the highly experienced career practitioners.
“In practical terms, we required students to complete some external modules prior to the commencement date, provided regular online sessions with tutors to ensure momentum and quick turn around on grading of assignments,” she said.
“We also offered flexibility of due dates to help support students prioritise the course content and assignment tasks to meet the scheduled timeline.”
While some aspects of the accelerated program differed from the year-long offering, Dr Gregory said that core elements remained the same.
“Assignments in the existing program already allow students to choose their area of interest and speciality, so the NSW TAFE cohort were able to draw on current practice issues and dilemmas to make the assignment tasks directly relevant to their work.”
For NSW TAFE participants, the accelerated program deepened their discipline knowledge and practical skills to ensure they’re up-to-date with best practice training.
Paul Chandler, Senior TAFE Counsellor and Psychologist, took part in the pilot program and said the Grad Cert provided strong academic grounding in current frameworks and practices for working with diverse client cohorts.
“For people whose key question of the practitioner centres on career and life design, the theoretical and evidence-based frameworks emphasised not only career management skills and techniques for testing career protypes, but the importance of personal meaning in occupational reflection and goal setting,” he said.
Dr Gregory said it was very satisfying as a professional graduate program to have the opportunity to work directly with industry to meet a training need.
“For the teaching team it provides an opportunity to review and reconfigure the program with a specific cohort in mind,” she said.
“In particular, the design thinking principles introduced in the program provided this experienced cohort with innovative ways to further support their clients in the career decision-making process.”
“It was a delight to work with NSW TAFE to support their career practitioners and develop strong connections with the cohort who join our growing group of RMIT Education alumni working in the industry,” she said.
Following the success of the pilot program, RMIT Education aims to offer the accelerated graduate certificate more widely to continue supporting the emerging needs in the field of careers practice.
Learn more about RMIT’s School of Education.
