What is being reviewed
The Manufacturing Industry Skills Alliance is the Jobs and Skills Council for
manufacturing, and training.gov.au names it as the developer of the ICP Printing and Graphic
Arts Training Package, the national package behind the Certificate III in Printing and the
other print qualifications. Its review
page sets out the scope: The review will examine the ICP Printing and Graphic Arts
Training Package, including qualifications, skill sets and units of competency.
It lists
six qualifications, All existing ICP skill sets
and All ICP units of competency and
imported units currently used within ICP qualifications.
The six are every qualification
in the package as published (our check against the package document).
- ICP20120 Certificate II in Printing and Graphic Arts
- ICP31220 Certificate III in Printing
- ICP31320 Certificate III in Print Binding, Finishing and Packaging
- ICP31420 Certificate III in Prepress Graphic Design Production
- ICP40120 Certificate IV in Printing and Graphic Arts Management
- ICP50120 Diploma of Printing and Graphic Arts Business Management
The timing comes from the Alliance’s Annual
Implementation, Promotion and Monitoring Activity Plan, Version 5, September 2026. It
lists the project as Printing and Graphics Technology, says This project will review the
ICP Printing and Graphic Arts Training Package
, and gives the timeframe as February 2026
to November 2026. The deliverable is a review report covering the currency of the package,
current and emerging skills, the impact of new technology, future training needs and
opportunities to strengthen training package through revised or new qualifications, units
of competency, skill sets and pathways
.
The review page describes who it is for. In the Alliance’s words, the industry is
Employing approximately 20,000 people across 5,000 businesses
, with more than 90 per
cent of enterprises employing fewer than 20 staff
. Separately, its workforce
projects page says it is tackling an ageing workforce particularly in the plastics,
rubber and cable-making, and print and graphic arts sectors
.
How old the package is
The training.gov.au record for the ICP package shows six releases. The current one, Release 4.1, came out on 20 July 2021, and each of the six qualifications is at its Release 2 of the same date. The qualification codes ending in 20 date from Release 4.0, on 6 May 2020.
- 26 March 2015Release 1.0
- 9 April 2015Release 1.1
- 15 January 2016Release 2.0
- 10 December 2018Release 3.0
- 6 May 2020Release 4.0: the current qualification codes first released
- 20 July 2021Release 4.1: current as at 8 October 2026
- February to November 2026Review timeframe, with a report as the deliverable
Measured from one release date to the next, Release 4.1 has now been current for longer than any earlier release of the package was.
What the 2021 release changed in the Certificate III in Printing is recorded in
its own document: four elective units
deleted as directed by the AISC
(rotary cutting and complex coating), minor changes to
the packaging rules to take in two more units, and typographical fixes.
“The above training products were identified as having zero enrolments over a three year period.”
The equipment the review names, and the package does not
The review page gives its reason for the work in plain terms: Job roles now often require
workers to use a broader mix of equipment and technologies, including wide-format printers,
CNC routers, laser cutters, engravers, and LED and illuminated signage systems.
That list reads as much like a sign and display shop as a print shop.
We searched the full text of the Release 4.1 package document on training.gov.au, 1,617 pages covering every qualification and unit, for those terms.
- Both wide format mentions sit in digital print units, ICPPRN3840 and ICPPRN4960, about
using raster image processor technology
when outputting to digital devices including wide format
- “Signage” appears three times, each about labels or safety signs in the workplace, not making signs
That does not mean a trainee can never touch those machines inside a print qualification.
The packaging rules leave room: in the Certificate III in Printing, 3 units may be selected
from the remaining listed elective units or any currently endorsed training package or
accredited course at Certificate III or IV level
. So a registered training organisation
can bring in units from elsewhere. What the print package does not do, on our search, is
describe the work itself.
What happens after November
The review is not the rewrite. The page says The findings will inform
future workforce planning, qualifications reform and potential Training Product Development
(TPD) activities.
Development work is planned separately, in the Alliance’s
Annual
Training Product Development Plan, which it says outlines the training products to be
developed and the project timelines
. As at 8 October 2026, the current version of that plan,
Version 12 of September 2026, lists no print project.
- For scale, the development plan’s MEM update (metals and engineering) covers 39 qualifications and 790 units, starting 31 July 2026 with expected completion 31 March 2028
The review page invites input from employers, workers, industry associations, training
organisations and equipment suppliers, and says Interested stakeholders are encouraged to
participate in consultation activities and contribute to the review.
It gives a contact
address; as at 8 October 2026 it published no closing date for input.
What it means for a print business
Our view. The Alliance has named the gap itself, and the package text bears it out: four of the five kinds of equipment on its own list are not mentioned anywhere in the package text, and the fifth, wide format, appears only as a device a file is output to. For a shop whose apprentices spend their days on wide-format printers, routers and lasers, the national qualification describes a different job, and the elective rule is the workaround the package allows.
The useful thing to know is where the decision sits. A review that ends in a report changes no qualification by itself; the report feeds whatever development project follows, and none is listed yet. That makes the next few weeks, while the review is still inside its timeframe, the point at which an employer’s description of the actual work carries furthest. A list of the equipment an apprentice runs, and the tasks a new starter cannot do, is the kind of evidence the review says it is gathering.
What we check next
The review report, which the plan’s timeframe puts by November 2026, and whether the Alliance’s next development plan lists a print project. We will report what the review recommends when it is published.