Case Study - Queensland Rail

Queensland Rail is a corporatised transportation agency and an extremely diverse organisation which conducts its business across 8,500 kilometres of railway track throughout the state. The activities of this far-flung workplace include:

construction and maintenance of track, signals and telecommunications, rolling stock and traffic control systems; and
transport of passengers, livestock, primary produce, coal, minerals and general freight.

Queensland Rail takes very seriously the need to ensure that the public, employees and passengers are safe during all phases of work or transport. Safety systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated and employees are required to process and respond to information in the workplace at an ever-increasing rate.

In 1995, Queensland Rail implemented a workplace competency-based skills assessment scheme. This scheme was introduced in the infrastructure division of the organisation -- an area responsible for the construction and maintenance of track. As a result of this initiative, literacy began to be seen as an integral component of the overall workplace change underway in QLD Rail. In 1997 it employed two workplace literacy consultants, Debra Littlewood and Janette Platt, as part of its ongoing literacy support initiative. The consultants' brief was to survey personnel in the operational divisions across the three business groups: Coal and Minerals, City Train and Freight. The brief involved identifying the literacy and numeracy requirements for each job type within operations that enabled safe working practice. Before the project commenced, decisions were made relating to the implementation of the National Reporting System (NRS) and the methodologies used to gather the information.

NRS implementation in Queensland Rail

NRS Railway Cartoon Using the NRS, QLD Rail proceeded to develop a method of determining the literacy skills of the different job types across its various operations divisions. After discussion between the literacy consultants and the Workplace Projects Manager, a survey was conducted in which the consultants observed workers carrying out their duties and talked with them about their job requirements. The purpose of this survey was to determine the literacy levels necessary to work safely within each job type. Some of the jobs profiled were shunters, drivers, station officers and porters. The actual tasks and safety factors for each job were recorded and aligned to the appropriate levels of the NRS. For example, the numeracy skills used to gauge braking speeds for a one-kilometre long train descending a hill have a higher critical safety factor than the numeracy skills required for a porter to read a train ticket. NRS News No. 6 outlines how "the NRS provides a mechanism for judging the difficulty of language or numeracy embedded in specific vocational tasks and/or training". This mechanism was used over many weeks to gather the information in the survey. Once the data was collated, the consultants conferred on the tasks within each job to ensure consistency of the appropriate level and aspect of the NRS.

The information collected has provided a more accurate assessment of the level of skill required for a job, so that appropriate support can be provided for those workers not meeting these levels. This support will be offered through existing language, literacy and numeracy programs or by using the NRS to customise externally availablematerials, materials already available in QLD Rail and for the development of new workplace specific materials and courses.

Queensland Rail's decision to adopt the NRS is underscored in the 1996 booklet Applying the NRS: "It can be used for identifying and packaging language, literacy and numeracy competencies into the curriculum to meet the needs of particular target groups". QLD Rail also required a nationally consistent rating system that could be aligned against the National Competencies and Standards and their own industry-specific standards. A further advantage is the possibility of aligning the NRS rated competencies with the Australian Qualifications Framework and the Frontline Management Initiative competencies and qualifications.

Methodology

The survey was initiated when the consultants commenced on-the-job observations and discussions with workers across the organisation's operations division. Workers were interviewed about the tasks and sub-tasks of their jobs. These tasks were recorded and the findings then discussed with local safety officers or the appropriate workplace contact person in each district to determine where a lack of skills posed serious safety risks. The information was collected under the following headings:

job type;
location;
business group;
job tasks;
literacy skills; and
safety risk

The safety issues which needed to be considered were:

personal safety;
passenger safety;
risk of derailment; and
risk of damage to track or rolling stock.

To determine the NRS ratings for each task within a job, reference was made to the broad-based statements given in the Indicators of Competence for each level as outlined in the NRS publication National Reporting System: Thinking Nationally, Acting Locally. This was done through consultative discussions, and only those aspects of the NRS at each level which appeared relevant to the workplace situation were used -- generally these were Cooperative Systems and Procedural Communication. The language and literacy features and performance strategies in the NRS publication were also used as a guide in deciding the levels of literacy. To rate numeracy skills, the specific aspects were referred to in conjunction with the numeracy features and performance strategies for each level.

Findings

We experienced both positive and negative issues in using the NRS.

The positive aspects were:

the NRS provided a foundation from which to rate skills on a national basis;
the findings could be read and applied to the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) and the National Industry Standards, as outlined in Applying the NRS (1996). "In May 1995, Commonwealth, State and Territory Ministers for Vocational Education and Training agreed that English language, literacy and numeracy competencies must be incorporated in to competency standards." QLD Rail took this initiative seriously and established the processes necessary to ensure implementation; and
the alignment of literacy standards also gave QLD Rail valuable experience in using the NRS. This experience will be transferable to our implementation of the Frontline Management Initiative.

Some negative aspects of using the NRS were:

The Mayer Key Competencies were not reflected in the Indicators of Competence. As stated by Catts (1996), "The National Framework (and hence the System developed from it, the NRS), does not cover competencies such as planning and organising, solving problems, using technology, and collecting and organising information". These areas were found to be crucial in assessing and reporting on workplace literacy skills. Since the tabling of the National Training Reform Agenda, industry has been focusing its training plans for award restructuring and workplace reform around the Mayer Key Competencies. The NRS needs to consider these competencies in order for it to be fully functional for industry.
QLD Rail agrees with Catts (1996) when he stated, "The framework (and hence the NRS) is concerned with learning contexts, whereas industry competencies describe what people can do in the workplace, irrespective of how or when the competency was acquired". In considering these factors the NRS was found to be without Indicators of Competence for some literacy skills that were prevalent in the workplace. The literacy skills required in the workplace included:
- computer skills office technology skills team skills
- higher-level thinking skills
- planning and organising work.
We were unable to accurately rate these literacy skills using the NRS.
The conditions specified at each level of competence for varying levels of support was another issue that impinged on the effectiveness of using the NRS. The levels of support were detailed in the Conditions of Performance section of the NRS, which is intended to outline the context and support variables. NRS News No. 6 outlined the key theoretical principles underpinning the five levels of competence as:
- the complexity of the task and text
- familiarity with the context
- the degree of support available
- the numeracy complexity.
In industry most activities are expected to completed independently in order to be competently performed. The operational necessity for industry to make a profit requires that workers are able to work independently. In order to continue our use of the NRS to rate literacy skills which must be performed independently, we added a condition to our findings, which outlined our ratings as being graded assuming competence to perform the skill independently. We were forced to ignore the Conditions of Performance in order to rate the skills against an NRS level.
The language used in the NRS is very specific to literacy practitioners. In order for a workplace trainer or training designer to use the NRS, it will need to be rewritten in plain English. McKenna (1997) suggests that: "the indicators of competence be rewritten in plain English to be available as a resource to writers of National Training Packages."
Anita Roberts from ANTA suggests, "To ensure language and literacy competencies are correctly identified and incorporated into training packages, developers will be encouraged to seek guidance from specialist language and literacy consultants".

Conclusion

The literacy skills survey for safety in Queensland Rail has been a successful project. It proved to be beneficial in identifying areas of specific need for workers, and providing practical evidence for management outlining the extent and type of support required for safe working. It also served to raise issues such as training trainers in literacy awareness and support, rewriting existing training materials for students with literacy needs, and integrating literacy support in all work-related activities throughout Queensland Rail, particularly those involving workplace change.

Using the NRS as a key component of this Queensland Rail literacy initiative has been a productive and beneficial experience. The results suggest that further work is required before industry will be able to fully implement the NRS into its learning culture.

For more information contact Elaine Roberts on (07) 3235 3219 or Debra Littlewood on (07) 3235 3814.