Correction of record
What changed in 2025: the validation quota is gone.
Half the advice published for RTOs still describes the 2015 Standards. Here is the 2025 position, sourced line by line.
The old rule (2015 Standards)
Validate 50 per cent of training products within the first three years of each five-year cycle, and each product at least once every five years. The percentage did the scheduling for you — whether or not it matched your risk.
The 2025 position
What stays, what replaces it
Replaces the quota: a risk-justified schedule
You decide which products are validated early and how large the samples are — and you must be able to justify that decision on risk: new trainers, new or changed products, complaints, completion data, industry feedback. A schedule with no justification narrative is just a spreadsheet.
Sharpened: TAE independence
Why you will still find the old rule online
Template packs, consultant blogs and even some internal policies still quote the 50-per-cent-in-three-years figure, because they were written under the 2015 Standards and never revisited. If your validation policy cites a percentage quota, it is citing a repealed instrument. That is an easy finding for a performance assessment — and an easy fix.
Fix the schedule
The Schedule Builder turns your scope and risk signals into a five-year risk-rated schedule with a justification narrative, and prices the validation of the units it flags.
Build your scheduleFix the understanding
One page, five sections, every claim sourced: what validation is, pre-use review versus validation, who can validate, samples and risk, and what evidence of validation looks like.
Validation explained