There has been much discussion around the requirements associated with “pre-assessment validation” of assessment tools, or “pre-use review” of assessment tools, or other terms that have been used interchangeably to refer to a process that Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) need to be implementing. This article focuses on the pre-use review (Standard 1.3) rather than the validation requirements of Standard 1.5.

Validation is one of those tasks that we tend to put to the bottom of the pile, especially as the 2015 Standards only require validation once within a 5-year cycle (with 50% of scope validated within 3 years). So why create a lengthy, time-consuming process that nobody has time for?

I hear this question often. However, my question in reply – is validation a process that is passed or failed?