Industry apprentice assessments go online

Suitability testing of potential printing industry apprentices and trainees will become easier for employers from this week with the introduction of an online assessment service by the Printing Industries Association of Australia.

The service was extensively trialled over 12 months by Printing Industries in NSW before being made available to printing companies throughout Australia.

Bill Healey, CEO of Printing Industries, said the online assessment service would bring national consistency and efficiency to apprentice and trainee pre-testing.

“Our service is based on the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) Vocational Indicator (VI) platform which is a nationally recognised and standardised system. Candidates complete an online assessment covering literacy, numeracy, abstract reasoning and mechanical aptitude.

“The results are compiled into a series of easy to read reports forwarded onto the sponsoring employer immediately following the test. The results provide a written and chart based assessment of the candidate’s performance based on their response to a series of 20 questions in each of the assessment areas,” he said.

According to Ian Walz (pictured), national manager for commercial services at Printing Industries, each response to the literacy and numeracy questions also contain an Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) indicator assessing the candidate’s learning, reading, writing, oral communication and numeracy levels. As the assessment relies on a computer based system using the RGB colour gamut, it cannot be used to assess colour blindness.

The Vocational Indicator can be could be used as a screening instrument to identify 'best performance' or as a tool to identify literacy, numeracy and reasoning skill gaps for any job applicant and was not restricted only to apprentices or trainees.

“This system has many uses including assisting with the identification of a learning path for candidates to make progress towards the skills needed in relation to qualifications, work demands or even social contexts.

“We will continue to provide colour blindness testing separately using the established evaluation card system that has proven so effective over many years,” he said.

The online assessments are available through all Printing Industries offices. Special arrangements for inhouse testing can also be provided if required.

Walz can be contacted on (02) 8789 7380 e-mail: registration@printnet.com.au to discuss company specific needs or booking online assessments.