SQMI Information Sheet 5 - The Seafood Industry Training Package – What is it?

The Seafood Industry Training Package brings together the competency standards, qualifications and assessment guidelines to make training smoother, better and smarter for employers, employees and people wanting to train for work in the seafood industry.

The Training Package contains:

Competency standards

These describe the skills and knowledge needed to work effectively in the seafood industry. The full set of competency standards is made up of individual units. These are 'packaged' together to make up a series of qualifications.

Qualifications

The Training Package has 21 qualifications, covering work at different levels across 6 streams or Industry Sectors:

• Aquaculture
• Fishing Operations
• Fishing Charter Operations
• Fisheries Compliance
• Seafood Processing
• Seafood Sales and Distribution

These are nationally recognised qualifications that recognises skills gained on the job or through a formal course or a combination of both. The Training Package approach also allows for flexibility in the way that skills can be recognised.

There are a number of ways to obtain a qualification that allows you to mix and match where and how you do your training and assessment:

• Training and assessment off the job
• Training and assessment on the job
• Training & assessment on & off the job
• Assessment only 'off the job'
• Assessment only 'on the job'

The table below shows the range of qualifications able to be achieved within the main industry sectors:

Industry Sectors	Qualifications
	Cert I	Cert II	Cert III	Cert IV	Diploma
Aquaculture
Fishing Operations
Fishing Charter Ops
Compliance
Seafood Processing
Sales & Distribution

It is easy to build a training pathway for a career in one particular stream, such as aquaculture or seafood processing.

It is also just as easy to move from one stream to another, for example from aquaculture to fishing operations. That's just one of the benefits of having a common set of core units across all qualifications and a wide range of elective units to chose from.

This flexibility means that it is easy to pick and choose units to make up a qualification that really relates to the work that you or your employee does. It's your choice!

It also means that an employee with any qualification from the Seafood Industry Training Package will have shown that they can do a range of common industry activities - such as applying basic food handling and safety practices, working effectively in the Seafood Industry, communicating in the Seafood Industry and meeting occupational health and safety requirements

It is important to note that all these assessment pathways can lead to a full qualification or Statement of Attainment for individual units of competency.

More information

For further information please contact:

SQMI Project Manager, WA Seafood Quality Management Initiative at the Department of Fisheries.