RAPPORT
Issue 5 (August 2020)
establish a competitive VET sector by
offering subsidised training based on NSW
skills priorities. Under this initiative,
Registered Training Organisations (RTOs)
receive funding based on the number of
units or subjects completed by individual
students. The more units or subjects that
are completed by students, the more funds
the organisation can collect from the
government; student completion is,
therefore, a significant issue. As stated by
Anderson (2010), when teachers feel the
pressure of student completion, they can
yield to undesirable practices such as
lowering ethical standards or recording
unrealistic results.
For learners to receive such subsidised
courses, eligible students must have a
completed individual learning plan (ILP),
sometimes called a training plan. This
sets out how, when, and by whom the
training and assessment are conducted to
achieve their qualification successfully. It
is pre-populated by the institution's
enrolment system with the list of units or
subjects that the student must complete. It
also identifies whether the student should
receive recognition of prior learning (RPL)
or be required to undertake a full training
program, and any identified need for
support. The Plan is meant to be a living
document for enabling competency-based
development and completion.
Every eligible student must have a
completed ILP by week 12 of their course.
The pre-populated document is signed by
both parties, and the signed document
filed for safe record keeping. It is intended
that students discuss the ILP with their
teacher: however, due to time constraints,
such discussions seem to be mostly
absent. One aim of the study reported
here was, therefore, to make better use of
the ILP, which appears to have a minimal
value other than meeting reporting
requirements within the organization. I
wanted to investigate how teacher
colleagues could be motivated to use the
ILP document as a partnership-building
tool for the benefit of student learning.
The study
I used tutorial meetings as a platform to
seek to create such a partnership between
student and teacher. The introduction of
tutorial meetings was new to staff and
students. The College runs some
technical support sessions to assist
students with their practical work.
However, the meetings I introduced in this
study were not intended to offer technical
support for students but rather to be
periodic meetings that students individually
have with a tutor to provide emotional,
motivational, personal, assurance, and
reflective support. Such tutorial meetings -
were introduced as part of the research to
find out their effect on student engagement
in combination with the ILP, and
specifically to find out whether they would
foster engagement and encourage
students to talk in-depth, in a safe
environment, about what they had learned
and the problems they had encountered.
My sample consisted of thirteen students
and two teachers, all of whom selfnominated
for participation in this
research. The thirteen students were
studying at Diploma or above level.
Diploma students are deemed equivalent
to first-year students in a university
undergraduate degree in the same or
similar discipline area. After completing
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