Feedback invited on draft Foundation Skills Professional Standards Framework

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A National Foundation Skills Strategy project has produced a great resource for the professional development of foundation skills practitioners.

If you are after a good model for a workforce capability framework then you can do no better than take a swing through the draft Foundation Skills Professional Standards Framework (14 pages).
The Framework was developed as part of the National Foundation Skills Strategy endorsed by Australian governments with an aim to substantially improve the literacy and numeracy skills of working age Australians. The Strategy’s target is that by 2022 two-thirds of the labour force will perform at Level 3 of the Australian Core Skills Framework.

Levels of practice and capability domains

The draft Foundation Skills Professional Standards Framework (FSPSF) identifies four levels of professional practice:

Operate only with support and advice from experienced foundation skills providers
Operate under supervision and as part of a team
Operate independently and in collaboration with others
Operate independently and provide leadership and mentoring for others.

Each of these professional practice levels is mapped against four capability domains:

Knowledge of foundation skills
Capacity to provide foundation skills services
Experience in foundation skills teaching practice
Skills in professional capacity building

As the draft FSPSF notes, ‘Practitioners will generally have a spiky profile across the capabilities, indicating individual areas of expertise and experience.’

The draft FSPSF specifies capabilities carefully. For example, Capability Domain B (Capacity to provide foundation skills services) is demonstrated by practitioners who can: apply adult learning principles; respond to identified foundation skills needs; collaborate with others to deliver services; and provide foundation skills pathway advice.

Acknowledging the diversity of practice contexts

Importantly, the draft FSPSF recognises that foundational skills teachers work in a variety of practice contexts. Three broad contexts are identified: education and training; workplace and employment; and personal and community. Within these practice contexts there are influencing factors which determine ‘how the capabilities described in the Framework relate to their own practice’. The three influencing factors are:

The foundation skills service delivery environment – the environment in which service delivery takes place, including physical and online
the practitioner’s job role – degree to which foundation skills service delivery forms part of job role
the intended outcomes from service delivery – formal or informal, individual skills building, integrated and contextualised programs, skills assistance.