VET & TAFE
campusreview.com.au
And Pete’s first employer – a local civil
engineering firm – gets a fully qualified,
job-ready, mature graduate delivered on a
silver platter courtesy of the system. Pete’s
employer bore no direct expense, and wore
none of the risk, in the administration of
Pete’s education.
What about Rebecca, the aspiring
apprentice?
The system expects Rebecca, as a
17-year-old, to scour her chosen industry
for a potential employer, then negotiate
the terms of her employment and training
package with senior management. She
has zero room for error here; if Rebecca
doesn’t nail this step, someone else will get
her spot.
If Rebecca isn’t quite prepared for the
transition from school to apprenticeship,
then there aren’t the funded support
mechanisms in place – at least not anything
like that available to Pete.
There is no student loan available to
Rebecca unless her apprenticeship is
geared at the diploma level or higher; and
even if she is eligible, Rebecca faces an
upfront loan administrative fee (that is, tax),
from which Pete is exempt.
Let’s assume Rebecca begins her
apprenticeship, which will take 3.5 years to
complete. There is zero guarantee that she
will be allowed to complete her training,
even if she performs at the highest level.
This is because she trains at the
discretion of her employer, who hires at
the discretion of the economy. Should the
Australian dollar rise, or the price of coal
drop, Rebecca may lose her apprenticeship
part-way through her studies, and is
effectively cast out on the street to start
over. (This happens regularly, by the way.)
Because of training lag times, this
cyclical churn of apprentices plays havoc
on workforce dynamics. When the market
booms, the pipeline of skilled graduates
doesn’t flow because of the crimping that
occurs during market downturns. This
causes wages to skyrocket, hurting industry
even more.
Should Rebecca’s employer manage to
keep her on during volatile periods, they
have to endure at least two costly years of
“high-supervision, low-skill” output from
Rebecca while her skills develop.
Meanwhile, the government contribution
received by my university to manage the
Drop in government-funded VET students
Analysis shows disturbing trend for
vocational education and training.
By Wade Zaglas
N
ew analysis has highlighted a 6 per
cent decline in government-funded
VET students across Australia
between 2015 and 2018, sparking concerns
about the state of the sector.
However, two jurisdictions bucked the
trend by showing growth, analysis by Claire
Field and Associates shows. The findings
follow the release of the latest National
Centre for Vocational Education Research
(NCVER) report.
NSW, for instance, posted a growth
of 26 per cent over the same period.
In 2015, there were 318,375 government-
funded VET students in the state studying
at TAFE as well as ‘other’ providers. The
figure jumped significantly to 421,095
the following year before falling back to
390,945 in 2017. In 2018, government-
vital classroom aspects of Rebecca’s training
is, on average, less than a third of the
funding received for an equivalent higher
education qualification. This is despite the
provision of qualified educators, practical
workshops, learning materials, facilities and
consumables being comparable to that of
students such as Pete.
Luck is arguably the major factor in
determining whether Rebecca’s journey
through the system is successful, whereas
Pete has to worry only about his own merit.
Does this reflect on how differently
Australia respects the career choices made
by Rebecca and Pete?
Our apprenticeship training system may
have served our economy well for a time.
But the world has moved on, whereas the
way we train our apprentices remains stuck
in a bygone era.
Change is needed, and it begins by giving
Rebecca’s career choice the same respect
we pay to Pete. ■
Professor Nick Klomp is vice-chancellor
and president of CQUniversity.
* This article was originally published
in The Australian.
funded VET students in NSW increased
again to 400,890.
The ACT was also another standout
jurisdiction in terms of government-
funded students. In a similar vein to
NSW, the ACT posted solid numbers
in 2015 (16,275) before experiencing
a decrease the following year.
Government-funded VET student
numbers increased again in the following
years, with 17,745 such students in
the ACT in 2018.
All other states and territories recorded
declines in student numbers, with Victoria
recording a whopping 26 per cent
decrease.
Last year an estimated 1.1 million students
in Australia were enrolled in a government-
funded VET course. The NCVER report
also found that overall subject enrolments
dropped by 5.7 per cent between 2017
and 2018, and hours and full-time training
equivalents decreased by 6.4 per cent over
the same period.
The report follows widespread concern
about the state of the VET sector, with
concerns an ailing sector will be ill-
equipped to handle the skills shortages and
business demands of the future. ■
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