The Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s (QCAA) performance assessment process aligns with the 2025 Standards for registered training organisations (RTO) and Australian Skills Quality Authority’s (ASQA) revised regulatory approach.
Performance assessments check that school RTOs meet the Standards and legislation. They give students, parents and carers assurance that their education investment has value and purpose.
When we conduct performance assessments
The QCAA will generally conduct a performance assessment:
- within 2 years of initial registration
- after a risk intelligence activity.
What we assess
The QCAA assesses the RTO’s performance against the Standards and legislation.
The Standards we assess performance against are:
How we assess
The QCAA takes a sampling approach to performance assessments. This means to assess performance we will usually look at some, but not all of the standards and sample evidence across an RTO’s scope of training products. The clauses and training products are known as the ‘scope’ of the assessment.
The QCAA determines the scope of the assessment by reviewing:
- VET student data
- provider profile
- compliance history.
The assesment process
The performance assessment process includes 6 key steps:
- Lead assessor contacts the RTO and plans of the scope of performance assessment.
- Assessors hold an opening meeting with principal and RTO manager to explain process.
- Assessors check compliance with the standards by collecting and analysing evidence through:
- information requests
- online or onsite observations
- interviews with principal, RTO manager, trainers and assessors and students.
- Assessors hold a closing meeting with the principal and RTO manager to explain findings to date.
- Lead assessor prepares performance assessment report that identifies met and not met outcomes.
- Lead assessor contacts the RTO manager to share outcomes of assessment and outline the next steps in the process.
Templates and correspondence
The QCAA has been given guidance from ASQA that their templates are to be incorporated into this regulatory assessment activity.
All correspondence between the school RTO and the QCAA for a performance assessment is completed through the VET application on the QCAA portal.
Note: There are no fees for performance assessments.
More information
For more information, contact us:
- Email: vet@qcaa.qld.edu.au
- Phone: (07) 3864 0381
- Last updated:
- 22 September 2026
