The Social Services Industry Training Organisation develops the national qualifications for the social services industry. We go through a robust consultation process to ensure that industry needs are heard, that we meet Māori educational goals and take into account all professional registration criteria. Then we develop the unit standards and qualifications to meet these needs. 

Once the unit standards and national qualifications are developed, we register them on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).

We also regularly review our unit standards and qualifications to ensure they remain relevant.

What are unit standards and qualifications?

Unit standards describe what a trainee needs to know or be able to do. They are small measurable packages of skills or knowledge. 

A qualification is made up of a package of unit standards that cover the necessary skills and knowledge that someone who holds the qualification should know or be able to do. 

A trainee’s knowledge and skills are assessed against all the unit standards in the qualification. The trainee will have achieved a national qualification once they are deemed competent in all the required unit standards. 

Find out more

If you want to know more about unit standards or the NQF, please visit the New Zealand Qualifications Authority website.

If you want to know more about the National Degrees for Youth Work and Social Work that we are developing, go to this page.