Training Today for Tomorrow’s Optical Dispensers

A trainee optical dispenser in 2011 has a very different job role to someone who was an apprentice in the 1980's. While the core optical dispensing skills have not changed, there are many additional skills required to operate a successful dispensing practice.

Today's optical dispenser can calculate prism, know when to measure a back vertex distance (BVD), identify and troubleshoot progressive lens problems, perform repairs, deal with atypical prescriptions, etc. In addition, these dispensers can also provide a high level of customer service, sell products, deal with difficult clients, market products and services as well as help manage a practice.

Shortage of Qualified Dispensers

Despite a number of training courses available, for many years the ophthalmic industry in Australia has experienced a shortage of qualified optical dispensers. As a result, optical dispensing is listed as a skills shortage area and as such attracts various levels of federal and state government funding. It is possible for employers to sign up eligible trainees and receive up to AUD$4,000 in federal government incentives as well as state and territory governments paying students' course fees.

A Complex Training Lifecycle

The Vocational Education and Training (VET) lifecycle of training optical dispensers in Australia is somewhat complex and can be difficult for employers to understand. The VET requires relationships between commonwealth, states and territories. Policies and standards are developed in isolation rather than from a national perspective. This increases their complexity, reporting requirements and funding arrangements.

It can be likened to a super-sized version of the complex private health fund arrangements and claiming rules that optical providers must adhere to.

Registered Training Organisations

Several universities and TAFE colleges around Australia provide training for the Certificate IV in Optical Dispensing. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Melbourne has delivered training to optical dispensers for more than 40 years. Over recent years there has been an increase in the number of Registered Training Organisations (RTO) in Australia, all of which are able to access government funding and can provide Certificate training for optical dispensers. These include Adult and Community Education institutions, private providers and enterprise RTOs.

Each of these RTOs must comply with a set of three nationally recognised standards, written by the Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF), to ensure that a consistent standard of training and assessment occurs in Australia.

Those endorsed standards and assessment guidelines underpin a training package that provides the parameters inside of which competency occurs.

Employability skills and competency standards, that the industry desires, are all included in the training package. Some of these include communication, teamwork, problem solving, initiative and enterprise, planning and organising, self-management, learning and technology. These skills are embedded
to ensure that graduates have the
skills for specific job roles such as optical dispensing.

It is up to individual RTOs to determine the best way to deliver training to address those competency standards.

Industry Skills Council

An industry skills council is responsible for developing and maintaining specific training packages. Each package has a steering committee, an industry reference group and an online system, which it uses to capture industry feedback from existing workers, employers and educational institutions.

In the case of optical dispensing, the Certificate IV in Optical Dispensing qualification HLT43507 is part of the Health Training Package (HLT07), which was developed by the Community Services Health Industry Skills Council (CSHISC). The HLT07 training package was endorsed for approval in 2007 and updated since to V4.0.

Certificate IV

The Certificate IV in Optical Dispensing has 14 units of competency or courses. Eleven of these courses are core and three are electives. Some electives can be selected from other training packages to meet the evolving needs of the workplace.

For example, RMIT University recently changed its course by removing 'edge and fit' as a preferred elective from its local program. It did this in response to recent changes to the optical industry, including the removal of workshops from dispensing stores and a lack of qualified supervisors and mentors in the workplace.

In doing so, RMIT says it has recognised that asking learners to develop competency in edging and fitting when they cannot develop competence in their workplace was affecting the student's level of engagement and motivation to study.

While RMIT has removed 'edge and fit' from its main program, the school continues to show students how to edge and fit lenses as part of their studies.

Recognising the need for greater emphasis to be placed on retail and practice management training, the 'Perform edging and fitting' module has been replaced with 'Manage a practice'.

Funding

RTO courses in Australia are funded in several ways and the cost to complete courses varies by state and territory. That is because each state and territory in Australia has a different funding model and each state has a different purchasing guide, developed by the government, to outline how many hours a course or program is funded. For example, the Victorian Government purchase guide is 773 hours for HLT43507.

Students that intend to study need to perform an eligibility check to determine if they are able to secure a full or part government funded spot or whether they will need to pay their own fees.

If an employer wishes to sign up an employee as a trainee they must do so through their local Australian Apprenticeship Centre. Once this is complete the trainee is nationally registered and the employer may be eligible to receive the federal Government's incentives.

There are some prerequisites to enrolment including a minimum of
15 hours per week employment in an optical business and support from a suitably qualified mentor (optical dispenser or optometrist).

Employers also have had the option of training an employee without
signing them up as a trainee. While in this case, the employer will forgo the Federal Government incentives,
subject to eligibility, the student may still be able to access state government funding.

Jason Patten is the Manager Complementary Therapies and Optical, School of Life and Physical Sciences RMIT University.

Timothy Haigh is Program Co-ordinator of the RMIT Optical Programs and is a qualified optical dispenser and mechanic with 25 years of experience.

Leah Hollway is a teacher in the RMIT Optical Programs and is a qualified optical dispenser and mechanic with 25 years of experience.

This article is dedicated to John Van Braam a staff member at RMIT who recently passed away. John had dedicated his life to the optical industry.