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VET’ s image isn’ t helping
Leading provider calls for more money and better policy to make training attractive.
Commencements and completions of apprenticeships and traineeships are down. That shows the need for greater investment and policy focus to improve the image of the vocational sector, one of the nation’ s leading training providers has said.
Group Training Australia( GTA) has called for increased funding following a report from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research( NCVER) showing a 22 per cent drop in apprenticeship and traineeship commencements in the year to December 2014.
The same report, Apprentices and trainees 2014 – December quarter, also revealed that the total number of trainees and apprentices had declined by 18.3 per cent, with just 316,400 apprentices and trainees actively training at December 31, 2014.
The drop was reflected in completion rates, which the report found had declined by 17.8 per cent despite an almost 8 per cent drop in withdrawals and cancellations.
However, it was not all bad news. Preliminary NCVER analysis of March 2015 quarter data indicates a 17.4 increase in commencements, compared with the December 2014 quarter.
“ In view of the subdued labour market conditions last year, we expected to see fewer people commencing apprenticeships and traineeships,” said Dr Mette Creaser, NCVER national manager of statistics and analytics.“ Taking into account the usual decrease in commencements in the December quarter because fewer employers put on apprentices and trainees at this time of year, the data indicates the rate of decline has slowed through the year.”
GTA chief executive Jim Barron said the decline fuelled the argument that more needed to be done to turn around negative perceptions of trades and apprenticeships and the potential they offered to school leavers.“ Despite much effort, many schools, students and parents have their sights set on university, and tend to regard a vocational career as a second choice,” Barron said.“ The status of an apprenticeship should be seen as equivalent to a university education, just as it is in a country such as Germany, where the priority on technical and trade skills is paramount.” n
Primary Catalyst
Researchers say thousands reduced their intake of statins after ABC program aired.
The ABC’ s controversial program reporting that the benefits of reductase inhibitors – better known as statins – for heart disease were grossly overstated led to more than 60,000 Australians ceasing or reducing their use of the drugs, new research has suggested.
The ABC’ s two-part special, which aired on the program Catalyst in October 2013, was widely criticised by medical experts and health bodies at the time for misleading patients about the supposed benefits of their treatments while also overstating the drugs’ potential harms.
The controversy and criticism sparked intense debate. A number of complaints to the broadcaster led to a review by ABC’ s independent Audience and Consumer Affairs Unit that found the program content breached the network’ s standards on impartiality.
The programs have since been removed from the ABC’ s online archive and additional corrections have been added to any remaining ABC reports relating to the programs and the fallout that followed.
University of Sydney researchers say that despite these actions – as well as a warning in the second part of the original program advising against anyone making changes to a prescribed statin regimen without seeking their doctor’ s advice – about 60,000 Australians either ceased taking statins or reduced their use of the drugs after the show aired.
Researchers analysed Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme( PBS) data relating to the dispensing of statins to a random sample group of almost 200,000 patients – 10 per cent of all Australians receiving medications under the PBS.
Lead researcher Andrea Schaffer and her team reported in the Medical Journal of Australia that following the Catalyst program,“ there was a 2.60 per cent reduction in statin dispensing, equivalent to 14,005 fewer Australia-wide, every week”.“ There was a temporary increase in discontinuation and a sustained decrease in overall statin dispensing,” they wrote.“[ Through ] June 30, 2014, [ 504,180 fewer statins were dispensed ], and we estimate this to have affected 60,897 people. If [ these 60,897 individuals ] continue to be non-adherent, this could result in between 1522 and 2900 preventable, and potentially fatal, major vascular events.”
The researchers also determined that as of about eight months after the airing of the programs, the data showed no indication that the changes had abated.
“ The subsequent retraction of the program may counteract some of the apparent negative impact, but this remains to be seen,” they concluded. n
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