It's a first for everything

Today was my first day the 20-day internship at the Department of Education Services. I will be located in the section of Training Accreditation Council, who regulates courses delivered at higher education departments and TAFE’s, which is delivered by Registered Training Providers (RTOs). Before I commenced my internship, I had done research about the Department and TAC; however, I could not get a clear understanding the services they provide. Luckily, on my first day I had an information session with one of the Register Officers at TAC before I started to commence any work, in order to get a better knowledge of the industry. During the session, my questions were all being answered. How does a person become an RTO? How do you accredit a course? The answers are too complicated to outline in this blog post, but believe me, at the end of my first day I am not even 100 per cent sure because it is a lengthy and complex process that will take time to learn. One of the main issues I could identify without being with the organisation for a long time is the webpage and how it is out dated and difficult to navigate. TAC receives a large amount of complaints regarding communications problems on its website. This became one of my first tasks, to draft up a new webpage that could improve the outlook of TAC as a modern organisation. Sadly, I had to use Microsoft Word because it was not any design programs available so the template looked quite basic. When working in the public sector, new implementations has to go through a series of decision making progresses to identify if those changes could be utilised or not within the allocated budget. Being in the public sector, funding is always a problem. Previously, one of the Managers for Regulation had asked to increase the funding so the needed update for the webpage would be possible to implement but that proposition was rejected. My supervisor wanted me to organise the webpage to reflect on how the organisation is operating, but in a monetary efficient way. My suggestions included tools such as social media, a search function on the webpage to reduce the difficulty of navigation, more inviting pictures on the homepage, changes of the position of the navigation buttons and so forth. All to be more user friendly and less complicated. However, time will examine if the suggestions are applied or not during my placement at TAC.

Until next time,

Karolina