VET & TAFE campusreview. com. au
The total picture
NCVER will soon publish a more comprehensive set of data on national training. So, what’ s in it for you?
By Craig Fowler
This year brings a landmark change in Australia’ s VET sector that in time will benefit a wide range of people and organisations, including consumers( students and employers), industry, registered training organisations( RTOs), policymakers and training regulators.
For the first time, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research( NCVER) will publish a more comprehensive picture of national training activity based on publicly funded training and privately funded training by private RTOs, collectively referred to as total VET activity( TVA).
Publicly funded training information has been collected and reported by NCVER on behalf of all Australian governments for more than 20 years. This arrangement arose from the origins of the National VET Provider Collection, which was to provide accountability for public training funds jointly funded by the Commonwealth and state or territory governments. As Australia’ s training market developed, demand increased for a more complete picture of Australia’ s training investment. This was widely recognised and, in 2012, the Council of Australian Governments( COAG) endorsed the broadening of the scope of the provider collection, paving the way for mandated reporting of nationally accredited training.
From January 1, 2015, all RTOs( except those presently exempted by regulators) are required to report their training activity undertaken in 2014, regardless of funding source. The first TVA collection is underway and when NCVER publishes this information around August this year, a far better understanding of training activity at the national state and territory levels is expected to emerge for the first time. This should show the extent and nature of
the private training sector, previously estimated to be of similar size to the public training sector( last reported to be about 1.9 million students for 2013).
The benefits of TVA will accumulate over time, with the first collection being limited to 2014 activity, so the full picture of training and benefits from this data will take two to three years to emerge.
The ongoing national focus on quality of training highlights the value of TVA. Regulators will gain better information with which to assess training outcomes and provider-level performance. The TVA data will also provide greater information about enrolments and completions, enhancing regulators’ effectiveness at monitoring training activity and training provision. This will support a more informed risk-based approach to regulation.
For policymakers, TVA information will provide valuable comparative data on student demographics, courses that students are enrolling in and completions, to help answer key questions on equity, efficiency and effectiveness – areas in which governments rightly have a close interest.
Students and employers, the consumers of training, will also benefit. As former managing director of NCVER Dr Tom Karmel said in 2011, one of the challenges of buying a service such as education is that it is difficult to know what you are buying until you have consumed it.
More than ever, students need as much information as possible about training outcomes and benefits to help them make informed choices, given their options of accessing subsidised training or personally investing in training. Publishing TVA data on platforms like My Skills will provide more valuable information about training providers and courses, such as which provider or course matches specific career aspirations or skilled labour needs, and which will offer the best likelihood of success.
TVA data should, in time, benefit RTOs too, giving the frontline service providers richer information for business planning, competitor analysis and benchmarking against similar-sized private RTOs and those offering comparable courses.
As I mentioned earlier, after successive TVA collections NCVER will also be able to provide more definitive information about enrolments and completions across the same courses and qualifications, be they publicly or privately funded. Student enrolments and qualification completions are not necessarily captured in one year, given that students may start their courses throughout the year, course duration varies, and the majority of VET students study part-time.
Finally, when combined with another initiative( the Unique Student Identifier), TVA data will also enable a much more refined understanding of individual student pathways and choices.
For NCVER, as with the RTOs reporting accredited training activity for the first time, this historic change has brought with it challenges. The company has developed new systems, including online data entry and validation and submission tools supported by a range of materials, plus a dedicated client support team. This has enabled NCVER to be more outwardly focused, developing and cementing existing relationships with student management system software vendors and thousands of RTOs operating across Australia. We have also worked closely and collaboratively with all Australian governments and regulators in support of the successful implementation of total VET activity. n
Dr Craig Fowler is managing director of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research.
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