Do my existing assessments become non-compliant under TPOF 2025?

Not by themselves — existing products remain current until superseded. When a product on your scope is replaced by a new-format version, normal transition obligations under the 2025 Standards apply: transfer learners in a timely way, and align tools, mapping and TAS to the new unit before delivering it.

Framework change · Updated July 2026

TPOF 2025 and the ASK unit format: what's changing — and how to upgrade.

The Training Package Organising Framework (TPOF), effective 1 July 2025, changes how Australia's training products are designed — including a new unit-of-competency format, Application of Skills and Knowledge (ASK), alongside the traditional elements-and-performance-criteria template. As Jobs and Skills Councils roll reformed products onto training.gov.au, every affected RTO faces the same job: redesigning assessments, mapping and TAS documents against a structurally different unit — across the whole catalogue.

What the 2025 TPOF changes

The updated TPOF — agreed by Skills Ministers in December 2024 and administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations — governs all new training-package development by Jobs and Skills Councils from 1 July 2025. The headline shifts:

Purpose-led qualifications. Qualifications are designed around their purpose — a specific occupation, multiple occupations across an industry, or cross-sectoral foundations and pathways — rather than assembled unit-first.
Two unit formats. Developers can now write units in the traditional Application, Elements & Performance Criteria format or the new Application of Skills and Knowledge (ASK) format.
Foundation skills at qualification level. Foundation skills become an outcome of the qualification (mapped to the ACSF), not just a per-unit field.
New templates across the board — units, assessment requirements, qualifications, credit arrangements and companion volumes all have refreshed templates.

The two unit formats, side by side

	Traditional format	ASK format
Structure	Application, elements and performance criteria, with separate assessment requirements.	An integrated statement of the application of skills and knowledge — describing what competent performance looks like, without the elements/PC grid.
Mapping model	Tasks trace to performance criteria, knowledge evidence and performance evidence.	Tasks trace to the skills-and-knowledge statements and the unit's assessment requirements — a different grid, so existing mapping doesn't transfer one-for-one.
Where you'll meet it	The existing register, and new products where the JSC keeps the traditional template.	New and revised products where the JSC adopts ASK — arriving progressively as reform projects complete.

Which format a unit uses is the developing Jobs and Skills Council's choice — RTOs will be delivering against both formats side by side for years.

What it means for assessment design

Your mapping model changes per unit. An ASK-format unit has no performance-criteria grid to map against — assessment tools and mapping matrices need to be rebuilt to the new structure, not just re-labelled.
Assessment requirements are rewritten too. When a unit converts, its assessment requirements arrive in the new template — evidence and conditions need re-checking, not assuming.
Foundation skills move up a level. Qualification-level foundation-skills outcomes (ACSF-mapped) need to be evidenced across the program, which touches TAS design as much as individual tools.
It hits at catalogue scale. This isn't one superseded unit — as reform projects land, whole training products convert, and every affected tool, mapping document and TAS needs upgrading inside your transition obligations under the 2025 Standards.

How VETos absorbs the change

The framework change is, above all, a workload problem — and generating and re-mapping content at catalogue scale is exactly what VETos is built for:

Drafts to the expected format. VETos generates assessment tools, mapping and supporting documents to the format the unit actually uses — traditional or ASK — from live training.gov.au data, so outputs land in the right structure rather than being reformatted by hand.
Upgrades what you already have. When a unit on your scope converts, VETos supports upgrading the existing tools to the new format — regenerating the mapping against the new structure, carrying your contextualisation across, and keeping the version trail that shows validators what changed and why.
Watches the whole catalogue. Currency alerts flag superseded and converting products across your scope, so the transition is a managed queue instead of an audit-eve discovery.

As always: a qualified person reviews and signs off every output — VETos makes the rework fast and evidenced, it doesn't remove your accountability. Book a demo with a unit from an affected training package, or start free.

Common questions

Is ASK an ASQA requirement?

No. ASK — Application of Skills and Knowledge — is a unit template under the Training Package Organising Framework, which is owned by Skills Ministers and administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. Jobs and Skills Councils choose which format to use when developing products. ASQA's role is unchanged: it regulates RTOs against the Standards, whatever format the units take.

When will ASK-format units reach my scope?

Progressively. New templates apply to JSC development from 1 July 2025, with reformed products rolling onto training.gov.au as projects complete — priority sectors first. Watch the training products on your scope (VETos's currency alerts do this automatically) rather than a single sector-wide date.

Do my existing assessments become non-compliant?

Not by themselves — existing products remain current until superseded. When a product on your scope is replaced by a new-format version, your normal transition obligations under the 2025 Standards apply: transfer learners in a timely way, and have tools, mapping and TAS aligned to the new unit before you deliver it.

See an ASK-format draft on your own scope.

Bring a converting unit — watch the tools and mapping rebuild to the new format in a 30-minute walkthrough.

Book a demo Start free