TAFE changes and dilly-dally about determining the‘ right’ course for VET in Australia, the momentum for meaningful change subsides.
An example of the lack of support for VET by our policymakers is the decision around international student visas where VET and universities are treated distinctly differently. Indeed, the visa situation has seen an erosion of the VET international student market. For further examples recently in Victoria, we need look no further than the take-up of VTAC preferences for TAFE( the public VET provider) to truly understand that the community’ s confidence and choices in TAFE have been severely degraded.
Australia’ s regional areas are traditionally faced with a lack of critical population mass, increased travel costs and a generally larger geographical spread.
While approximately 25 per cent of Victoria’ s population is located outside of the metropolitan centres, they lack opportunity and choice in terms of VET courses and location.
Even the new digital and technological advancements are limited by cost of service provision, areas unable to be connected to the digital highways and sheer lack of viability and choice of courses designed for delivery in the new format.
Coupled with these challenges, save for the large mining and infrastructure economic zones, regional Australians are the recipients of lower average wages / salaries than their metropolitan counterparts, and, therefore have less capacity to participate in VET educational provision.
Faced with a lack of choice and diversity and generally higher costs for education and training, these potential students leave regional Australia and / or fail to participate to their fullest capacity, the result of which is that Australia does not take advantage of our entire human capability.
Many endeavours have been initiated and deployed by educational providers to overcome the distance and isolation experienced by students living in regional Australia, such as distance education solutions, video conferencing and online
learning, and establishing regional campuses.
While many great advances have been made in respect to online and distance learning, there is still some way to go in order for students to have a‘ digital’ experience that’ s as satisfying as attending a campus.
Regrettably, while digital technologies are rapidly improving, we are currently challenged by the limited amount of engaging digital learning materials available.
Equally and unfortunately, many of our teaching and lecturing staff still have a deficit knowledge in respect of the digital teaching and learning experience, and often, our regional campuses are unable to offer the‘ full suite’ of programs wanted by regional students.
We often hear that Australia and Australians must participate in the creation of a more productive and smarter community, to the benefit of all; only then can Australia aspire to a more prosperous community.
At the heart of increased productivity and enhanced innovation is a vocational education experience that is dynamic, contemporary and, above all, designed not only to fulfil a skill need for today but prepare students for the world of tomorrow.
Many commentators talk of regular occupational changes throughout our working lives and the emergence of new occupations not yet considered- our vocational educational experience needs to play a major role in developing and preparing people for that future.
As responsible VET providers, we must challenge the role of the national curricula( that is, training packages) and ask whether we are teaching students to be innovative and knowledge adaptors for the future or are we entrenched in the here and now?
Unfortunately, I believe that there is much to be done in the training package space to ensure the vocational student gains those skills that are necessary to improve the Australian position.
In regional Australia there is a much greater imperative not only to reshape training package outcomes but also to
provide the diversity and learning choice necessary to support the development of innovation, adaptability, entrepreneurship and future decision-making.
Regional Australia remains underserviced in terms of vocational educational choice and diversity and while many different attempts are made to counterbalance the inequity between metropolitan and regional communities, these initiatives often fall far short.
Australian governments of all persuasions, at both the state and federal level, should accept that to have a prosperous Australia, regional communities must be better catered for and that this will incur increased costs. To maximise Australia’ s potential, VET policymakers must re-evaluate the importance of VET in communities and its impact in both metropolitan and, particularly, regional areas.
Vocational education and training has the potential to increase educational levels, to bridge the gap between tertiary education providers, to provide the hope of finding employment through increased knowledge and skill, as well as the benefit of increasing confidence in personal abilities.
To achieve these goals and to make our nation richer, our policymakers must embrace and engage regional communities more substantially through the provision of quality vocational education.
It seems that there is a continuing lack of vision by successive governments in ignoring and not addressing the VET needs of regional Australia.
Metropolitan-centric decision-making will continually short-change regional Australians and by implication we deny ourselves opportunities for prosperity.
Moreover, we continually denude regional Australia of the workforce it needs and the opportunities for our regional youth to positively participate in innovative vocational education and training. n
Dr Peter Whitley is the CEO of the Central Gippsland Institute of TAFE, more commonly referred to as‘ GippsTAFE.’
www. campusreview. com. au March 2013 | 31