policy & reform workforce becomes more globalised, interconnected and diverse. Individuals will need flexible, generic skills so they can respond to change creatively and transition across occupations and industries throughout their working lives.
Good foundations in language, literacy and numeracy and science, technology, engineering and maths( STEM) subjects will be crucial to support adaptability and movement within and between industries and occupations.
While individuals will need a good adaptive capacity in order to embrace future work opportunities and navigate change, our tertiary system will also need to become more responsive to changing industry and individual needs.
Future focus recommends a range of measures to ensure quality and adaptive capacity is strengthened in our tertiary sector including: a review of VET sector base funding levels; a new national body to drive excellence in VET; and a review of interfaces between VET and higher education to create more integrated and flexible learning pathways between the two.
Lifelong career development Having access to high quality, industryaligned career development advice is becoming increasingly important as our higher education and VET sectors move towards demand-based funding and our
workforce becomes more mobile.
In these changing times, AWPA believes people of all ages and cohorts should have access to independent career advice throughout their working lives so they can make informed choices and proactively manage their careers.
Greater industry involvement is needed to ensure that the advice is aligned to‘ real life’ and market needs.
Improving the provision of career advice could also help lift tertiary education retention rates.
Only two of Australia’ s 39 universities currently have attrition rates below 10 per cent for first-year domestic students, while VET qualification completions are estimated to average 28.4 per cent.
‘ Work ready’ graduates Employers routinely rank work experience as among the most important attributes they need in their staff. Participation in work-integrated learning, as part of a formal curriculum or through co-curricular means, helps to develop work readiness and encourages greater collaboration and increased industry ownership of skills development.
Gaining experience of a real-world working environment enables students and graduates to develop an awareness of workplace cultures and expectations, gain practical skills, build networks and develop‘ soft’ skills in communication, teamwork and leadership.
Workplaces get an injection of new talent and new ideas while employers develop
links with education institutions and other providers.
In Australia, opportunities exist for novice workers in some industries and occupations, but this is not true across the board. If we are to bridge the‘ experience gap’, opportunities for novice workers and new entrants need to be made more widely available across all industries.
Our VET sector has always had strong links with industry. While work-integrated learning is now increasingly a feature of higher education as well, more needs to be done to foster partnerships with industry— for example through a professional cadetships program— and further develop work-integrated learning opportunities in university degrees.
This would encourage greater collaboration and increased industry ownership of skills development.
Investing for the future Future focus looks at how Australia can position itself to meet future skills and workforce development needs, regardless of what the future holds.
How well Australia does in educating its workforce and in developing and using our skills in workplaces will help determine our living standards into the future.
The economic and social outcomes of investing in the skills of our future workforce will far outweigh the costs. n
Philip Bullock is the chair of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency.
www. campusreview. com. au April 2013 | 27