July 2024
The Optical Dispensing industry is integral to visual health and contributes to fashion and technology due to its incorporation of innovative designs and smart technologies. The market is expected to continue its growth trajectory driven by trends in digital device usage and the growing demand for functional yet fashionable eyewear. This highlights the need for training that keeps pace with these advancements.
Several core and elective units in the qualification have become outdated since the last update in 2015. This comprehensive review will align them with evolving technological advancements and changing industry standards.
Our review will focus on updating qualifications to reflect current industry practices, improve career pathways, and enhance the safety and quality of training to meet today's industry requirements and anticipate future challenges.
A project Technical Committee is being established to provide expert advice. Its members will be selected for their individual expertise relevant to the diverse aspects of the project.
Project fact sheet
View the Terms of Reference and Technical Committee members.
August 2024
We will undertake numerous information gathering activities to prepare drafts of units of competency, qualifications and skill sets for national stakeholder consultations.
These include:
- a Technical Committee meeting to source stakeholders to consult on qualifications content, for insight on communication and consultation strategies, and to provide technical knowledge on the skills required to meet desired vocational outcomes
- 16 one-on-one interviews to determine the skills required in organisations, the career pathways for workers and the foreseeable changes in the sector. Interviews will be conducted with small, medium and large employers
- a virtual functional analysis workshop for industry stakeholders around Australian jurisdictions to determine skill commonalities and differences, which will assist in determining core and elective components of the draft qualifications
- desktop research to gather publicly available information on industry standards, working conditions and employer recruitment selection criteria.
November 2024
Consultations were held between November 2024 and January 2025.
We collected feedback through workshops, surveys, site visits, e-mails and subject matter experts (SME) meetings. Workshops were held online and face to face around Australia, engaging multiple stakeholders in metro and regional areas, allowing diverse stakeholder perspectives to be captured.
Targeted interviews, public workshops and site visits were conducted with stakeholders providing valuable perspectives on the qualification review. Face-to-face workshops and site visits were held in Perth (4/11/24), Adelaide (6/11/24), Alice Springs (8/11/24), Darwin (11/11/24), Cairns (13/11/24), Brisbane (14/11/24), Newcastle (25/11/24), Sydney (26/11/24), Albury Wodonga (28/11/24), Melbourne (2/12/24), Canberra (4/12/24), and Hobart (11/12/24). Stakeholders were also provided with the opportunity to participate in online workshops (19/11/24, 13/12/24 and 17/12/24) and to submit feedback via survey. The survey for this project closed on Friday 10 January 2025.
Total number of people who attended F2F workshops: 27
Total number of people who attended online workshops: 29
Total number of site visits: 5 visits
Total number of surveys received with feedback: 16 participants
We would like to thank all participants who provided their feedback and contributed to the development of the draft training products. Here's what you told us.
Public consultation feedback
The draft training product documentation for this project is available to download.
Draft Training Product Documentation
February - May 2025
We appreciate your enthusiastic and positive engagement during the consultation period. Overall, 408 items of feedback were received via in person and online consultation workshops, site visits, multiple surveys and emails.
Each item of feedback was carefully considered and discussed with the Project Technical Committee before draft training products were updated.
Please view our Consultation Log containing a high-level summary of all feedback, proposed changes and actions taken with justification provided for feedback which was considered but not actioned. 
Consultation log
June - July 2025
Please check back later for further information.