VET
Another way to work it
It’ s a good time for alternate approaches to lowering youth unemployment, such as the trade diploma. By Bruce Mackenzie
One of the imponderables of government policy relates to the future of vocational education and training in Australia. In just over 40 years, Australia, as a result of reforms initiated in the 1970s through the so-called Kangan Report, built a world-class VET system. Its centrepiece was the emergence of new institutions called Technical and Further Education Institutions( TAFEs).
These have played an important role in allowing Australia to maintain social cohesion and reduce inequality and have helped make the country internationally and economically competitive. It is, therefore, difficult to understand why state governments have so savagely attacked these institutions in recent years. There is no doubt that, in terms of offering opportunities to the most marginalised people in this country, and in terms of responsiveness in meeting the needs of individuals and industry, TAFEs have been star performers amongst our educational institutions.
Vocational education is an integral part of the education system and it helps the Australian community cope with societal change.
One change at the moment is an emerging problem for governments – the growth in youth unemployment. This will become a more acute social issue because there has been a simultaneous downturn in the availability of apprenticeships, an important destination for young people, especially men.
High youth unemployment and low levels of educational achievement are not outcomes that any government or any community would want. However, the existing model depends upon employment as the only way in which skilling can occur. Apprenticeships have a retention rate of just 50 per cent and take longer to complete than a bachelor’ s program at most of our higher education institutions.
An alternative approach, which could run parallel to our existing apprenticeship model, involves using our TAFE institutions and Australia’ s group training companies as cornerstones for skills development. Some time ago, I produced a series of papers on the concept of trade diplomas. Their underlying principles are:
• Skill development can occur without an indenture. Fulltime institutional training, combined with work placement, will provide better educational outcomes for a student and arguably equivalent skill levels in less time than existing apprenticeship schemes.
• Productivity improves if you have a better-educated workforce.
• Education speeds up the process of technological diffusion.
• Vocational education is more than training people for the workplace. Knowledge workers require sound foundations in maths, science and communications, and an understanding of technology. Our trade training curriculums therefore need modernisation.
• Teachers need to become facilitators of learning and make better links between academic and technical studies and the workplace.
• Access to skills development and future employment should not be limited to those fortunate enough to obtain an indenture.
• Existing programs focus primarily on the development skills for the workplace. No attention is given to the development of the individual in the context of personal development, further education and career aspirations. Students would be better qualified and as well skilled as apprentices under the existing system because they would have completed a Trade Accreditation Test and undertaken more intensive off-the-job training than is now available. The scheme has a number of potential advantages, including:
34 | Issue 8 2013