campusreview. com. au
VET & TAFE
Quality Authority) will need to get right onto this and give specific guidance; I don’ t think it should be up to anyone’ s interpretation.”
Another aspect of the new standards that is worrying Clayton is“ the suggestion that one( external) validator may be appropriate. Unless it is a licensed area I would question that one validator is enough”.
Clayton says this is of particular concern in relation to the pivotal certificate IV qualification in training and assessment – the qualification that enables people to teach. The new standards require providers delivering this to undergo an independent validation, by just one or more people.
“ The people who do this validation have to have current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning and a training and assessment qualification equivalent to that which they’ re validating,” Clayton says.“ Now you could drive a bus through this. Do they have to have any experience?
“ I question whether it’ s appropriate for one person to do this validation. I also question whether simply having the current knowledge and skills and the certificate IV in training and assessment is sufficient. It reads as though validation could be done by someone who’ s recently completed a certificate IV and has done a bit of teaching. Is this really going to make a difference to the quality of the delivery of the certificate IV? I think not.
“ I believe there should be some requirements to have a number of years of experience in doing these things prior to being put in a position where you might validate. And this is an area that I consider ASQA should not only closely monitor, I think they should intervene and they need to provide guidance. Direct intervention by ASQA needs to occur, otherwise we’ ll have what we have now: people who are teaching with limited experience and we will have people with limited experience who are validating.”
Whilst passionate about teachers’ qualifications, at the top of Clayton’ s list of concerns with the new standards is the lack of clarity about the amount of training required for a program.
“ The most worrying aspect of all is around standards 1.1 and 1.2, which talk about the amount of training, a term that avoids the contested concept of volume of learning that we know has been problematic,” she says.“ I’ m assuming here that a training provider would be called upon to justify the amount of training they’ ve elected to employ for a particular unit of competency, for a particular qualification or a particular group of students. I understand the intent( of this standard). It’ s about trying to rid the system of‘ weekend’ diplomas, but as it’ s written I can just see trouble ahead for both ASQA auditors and providers alike.
“ Providers clearly need to understand what’ s expected of them, so I’ m suggesting that this is an area where ASQA will have to undertake research, because we do not understand what we mean by the appropriate amount of time( for a qualification). I think ASQA will need to provide wise counsel to training providers who will need to fully understand how they tackle this issue and then justify the decisions that they make when an auditor comes along.”
CAN AUDITORS EDUCATE? The new standards are accompanied by a new role for ASQA in educating providers, particularly in conducting workshops, and Clayton believes this will provide challenges for ASQA, especially as ASQA’ s frontline professional staff are auditors not educators.
“ The greatest challenge for ASQA will be the adjustment to a dual role,” she says.“ I don’ t think this will be easy and clearly, whilst they’ ve got some additional money, they will need to be concentrating on building a body of personnel to take on this new task of educating. I’ m assuming that the current auditors will not be required to take on both roles because people in ASQA with auditing skills do not necessarily have educational backgrounds or educational experience. I would imagine that ASQA’ s chief commissioner will be sensible enough to have two divisions, one an auditing division and the other an educational division.”
The educational role“ will clearly require a shift in mindset in ASQA”, Clayton says.“ What we’ ve had is a closed shop; it was very difficult to get information out of ASQA and I understand why. With 5000 RTOs, ASQA people couldn’ t be on the end of a telephone to all of them. Now that concept will have to be reversed because there will need to be open communication, probably about a multiplicity of things, and information demanded in a multiplicity of ways. That change is not going to be easy for ASQA and it’ ll take time.”
Clayton fears a scenario in which ASQA workshops for VET providers are not interactive, and are based around a set of PowerPoint slides with the ASQA presenter not open to discussion and problem solving.“ I would suggest that the workshops need to be of this type:‘ Bring your problem to us and let us work through different approaches.’ Actually working out how the standards apply in practice would be much more valuable( for participants) than just a talking head.”
IS REGULATION OR TEACHING THE KEY? Clayton is also concerned that governments are hoping new standards and a different approach by the regulator will improve the quality of the VET standard, whilst the government shows scant interest in raising the capabilities of VET teachers.
“ The lack of government interest in building the capability of the teaching workforce in VET is the thing that dismays me,” she says.“ I am convinced that regulation cannot on its own raise the quality or credibility of what we do in the VET sector and the fact that every other solution except addressing the capability of the workforce has been the focus of government is stunning.
“ Individuals, training organisations and industry as well as government, I suppose, now have clear responsibility to support a process of upskilling the VET workforce, because without that there is no way in the world we will meet the increasing demands that industry and government are placing on the workforce. Yet there seems to be deathly silence in this area; no one’ s willing to discuss it.”
Whilst the new standards are imperfect, Clayton believes they“ provide a reasonable framework for progress and enhancing quality”. But teachers are critical agents in implementing the new standards and their development is being overlooked, nationally.“ We do need to go back to the VET workforce and think about how they too can be skilled up,” she says.
Clayton’ s call for lifting the capabilities of VET teachers is falling on deaf ears within governments but those same governments may well get interested in the topic when the ASX, ASIC and legal firms, hot on the trail of the Vocation Ltd story, start asking questions about how the VET system ensure that its teachers are able to perform effectively in a variety of settings and with a raft of different student cohorts.
If teachers’ skills are not high enough, investors will quickly decide that VET providers are not worth investing in; and that view could lead to a decline in respect for the whole sector. What government would like to wear that public assessment of its VET providers? ■
Dr John Mitchell is a VET researcher and analyst. jma. com. au
27