The benchmark board
Eight layers from an industryto a single task
Every nationally recognised qualification in Australia is assembled the same way. Start at the industry, finish at one thing a person does with their hands. Switch the training package and the layers don't change — only what sits inside them.
7 training packages · two views — Board to see the shape hold, Read for the longer version.
1The bucket
The package is an industry, not a course
RII — Resources and Infrastructure Industry
Everything that digs, moves or builds the ground under Australia. Every coal mine, every metalliferous mine, every quarry and a solid slice of civil construction draws from this one package.
Over 800 units of competency sit inside it.
Start at the top and nothing about it is a course yet. A training package is a whole industry's worth of work, written down as units — and nobody ever does all of it.
2Lanes across the top
Split the bucket into the work that actually happens
Lanes are the streams of real work inside the industry. A unit sits in one lane, several, or all of them.
A unit sits in one lane, several lanes, or all of them. Operate light vehicle sits in all of them. Ventilation sits only underground.
3The ladder down the side
The level is a role, not a subject
The level does not tell you what someone learned. It tells you what they are expected to do with a system once they are in the job — and that is the whole reason the ladder exists.
The action words come from the Australian Qualifications Framework, not from the package. Follow and assist, apply and operate, supervise and monitor, implement and manage, establish and maintain — the same words whichever package you put underneath them.
Certificate I is rarely used here. People come in at Certificate II, straight out of school or off another site.
4One cell
A qualification is one lane crossed with one level
Cross a lane with a level and you have landed on a qualification. That intersection is the entire definition — which is why a qualification code can be read rather than memorised.
RII20120
Certificate II in Resources and Infrastructure Work Preparation
Surface Coal lane × II level — the highlighted cell on the board.
5Inside the cell
Core plus elective — that is the whole recipe
Core is the minimum for that stream at that level. Elective is whatever gets the job done. One of them is fixed; the other is where a training organisation earns its keep — or gets itself into trouble at audit.
Core
Risk management, incident investigation, site policies and procedures at the higher levels.
At Certificate II it drops to generic induction content — Standard 11 type material and basic site safety.
Elective
Pull a civil construction unit into a surface coal qualification when the site runs that plant. The lane is a guide, not a fence.
6One dot in the cell
A unit of competency is a single national benchmark
This is the smallest thing that exists on training.gov.au. The same benchmark in every state, at every site, for every registered training organisation in the country.
RIIVEH201E
Operate light vehicle
One of the dots in the highlighted cell.
7Reading the code
The code tells you where the unit sits
A unit code is not a serial number. Each segment says something — the package, the field, often the level, the identifier and the version.
RII
Package
Resources and Infrastructure
VEH
Field
Vehicles
2
AQF level
Certificate II
01
Identifier
01 light vehicle, 02 medium vehicle
E
Version
A through E — E is current
The rule holds here. AQF digit present. Here the number really does tell you the level.
8The floor, and the gap
One task — and the gap above it
The benchmark is the table of contents. The site standard has more in it — requirements, legislation, hazards and risks, and how the work is actually done here. Both are real. Only one of them is national.
Your site standard
site 40-point check · site assessment · SOPs · legislation
Get in the vehicle, do the pre-start, drive it, park it, hand it over. That is the whole unit.
RII — the bucket
Resources and Infrastructure Industry
one column = one pathway · dashes = same ladder, other lanes