The Canberra Institute of Technology chief executive insists a controversial $4.99 million contract with a consultancy firm has sown "seeds of change" at the institute.
The contract has become a hot-button issue in the ACT Legislative Assembly, with Skills Minister Chris Steel saying he was unable to determine what the contract actually delivered to CIT.
The minister now faces a no confidence vote, after it was revealed more work was awarded to the contractor despite Mr Steel raising concerns about the consultant receiving contracts more than a year ago.
But CIT chief executive Leanne Cover said the organisation had already seen "seeds" of changes from the work.
"The service provision that we've been seeking has been to co-design new ways of working, new ways of getting data utilised and analysing what our students really need," Ms Cover said.
"Already, we're starting to see the seeds of those changes happening."
The amount of the latest contract, $4,999,990.00, was $10 below the threshold at which it would have needed to go before the government procurement board.
Ms Cover said the price was based on market worth of the services provided by the consultancy firm.
"It's certainly a high investment," she said.
"[But] we're totally open and transparent in the process. When we go to the ACT government procurement board, we have to try to work out what that range might be.
"And at the time of going to market [we went] with an open process to try to make sure we could get as close to what that market would look like."
Ms Cover said the contract with Think Garden, run by "complexity and systems thinker" Patrick Hollingworth, had built CIT's "adaptive capacity to listen to what the industry needs."
"Internally, there's lots of changes. We've been doing this to adapt," she told ABC Radio.
"We need to be engaging differently with industry, listening to our students differently, and making sure we can pick up what students need.
"In a very rapid period of time, what institutions need to do is make sure that their courses can change and adapt ... this work is all about making sure we've got the tools, we've got the data, we've got the information and the frameworks."
The CEO said one change was moving from full qualifications to micro-credentialing, meaning smaller courses focused on very specific skills.
"We've gone from lots of full qualifications where people were engaging with institution for like CIT over a longer time [but] in the last couple of years, we've seen a rapid change to micro-credentialing," she said.
"This assessment is making sure CIT staff can work to identify what those new courses are."
Part of the contract which specifies mentoring services is heavily redacted, but Ms Cover said this was to protect commercial confidence about the consultant's methodology.
"The redaction is a normal process ... as providers can seek to have details such as commercial and confidence details [removed]," she said.
Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee will move the motion on Wednesday, saying it was astounding Mr Steel had admitted knowing about issues with contracts awarded by the Canberra Institute of Technology to Patrick Hollingworth in March last year.
"Since that time, further CIT contracts totalling $5.5 million have been signed under this minister's watch," Ms Lee said.
"The minister must be upfront with the public about what he knew, when he knew it and how it has been allowed to continue under his watch for the last 15 months."
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