The media's depiction of vocational education (original) (raw)
Related papers
This article is a critical review of policy and literature relating to vocational education and training (VET) in schools in Australia. Over the past decade in Australia, VET in schools has grown considerably so that not only are nearly half of senior school students now involved, but also VET in schools represents around 10% of total VET activity. In both schools and the VET sector itself, VET in schools was originally marginalised and this article explores its movement from the margins towards the mainstream in both spheres. An overview of the growth of VET in schools in Australia, along with other vocational developments in schools, is given, along with discussion of some of the benefits and challenges of VET in schools, both from a schooling perspective and from a national skills formation perspective. The consequences of the move from margins to mainstream have not yet been fully digested and debate rarely moves beyond consideration of implications for the school sector. The article moves beyond these narrow confines to raise broader questions for the VET sector.
Vocational education and training in Australian schools
The Australian Educational Researcher, 2007
While vocational subjects have always been part of the school curriculum, formal vocational education and training (VET) in the last two years of secondary education has been a policy focus for the last decade. In the Australian context, VET in schools is defined as courses that lead to industry recognised qualifications under the Australian Qualifications Framework while at the same time contributing to the standard Year 12 certificate. The number of students doing such courses has increased dramatically and is now close to one in two. The article looks at some history, the characteristics of the courses, the success of the policy in terms of school retention and labour market outcomes, and remaining challenges.
Vocational Education Today: Topical Issues
This book contains 13 papers examining topical issues in vocational education and training (VET) in Victoria, Australia. The following papers are included: "Vocational Education and Schooling: The Changing Scene" (Jane Kenway, Sue Willis, Peter Watkins, Karen Tregenza); "The Enterprise Approach" (James Mulraney); "VET Programs at James Harrison College" (John Bromilow); "'Great Organisations Dream Great Dreams" (David Gallagher); "An Investigation into the Impact of Mentoring Unemployment" (Barbara Hammond); "Issues Confronting Vocational Education in Victorian Schools in the Late 1990s" (Karen Tregenza, Jane Kenway, Peter Watkins); "Participant Pathways and Outcomes in Vocational Education and Training: 1992-95" (Peter Dwyer, Aramiha Harwood, Geoff Poynter, Johanna Wyn); "Paths to Pathways: Educational Pathways for Educationally Disadvantaged Young People" (Jennifer Angwin, Louise Laskey); "Enh...
From your business to our business: industry and vocational education in Australia
Oxford Review of Education, 2004
Over the last 20 years, the voice of business and its impact upon Australian vocational education have transformed. These changes range from enterprise reluctance to be involved through to industry determining what is taught and assessed, and how, as well as the principles for administering vocational education, and attempts to use vocational education to reform the schooling system. These transformations and government complicity in them are enmeshed in the restructuring of the Australian economy allegedly in response to an increasingly competitive and globalised economy. They were also facilitated by vocational education continuing to be misunderstood and having low status. However, the expanded leadership role afforded Australian business has not been matched by its purchase on the complexity of educational issues and practice, including the need to encompass other interests (e.g. small business and students). While vocational education has become the business of business, it seems it is business not understood. Even in addressing its own purposes (i.e. work readiness), business has demonstrated a preference for ideological and naive imperatives that have proved inadequate. Along the way, the goals for vocational education and standing of its institutions, practitioners and students have all been transformed, probably to their detriment.
As the successful implementation of competitive VET markets enters into a predictable decline trajectory, it is incumbent upon policy makers to consider post-market options. This article explores the potential of optimising the notional national training system. In order to understand how this might be achieved, a discourse analysis of selected maps of the intended system from points of discontinuity along the policy trail is undertaken to demonstrate how Australian executive federalism has produced VET policy for the past three decades. This process exposes the existence of multiple realities that can be simultaneously experienced which, in turn, creates conceptual confusion as to what VET is and what is expected of it. By understanding the power of discourses to bring into existence the things they describe and how this activity is conducted, it becomes possible to contemplate future directions in the development of public policies for vocational education and training.
Patching bits won’t fix vocational education in Australia – a new model is needed
International Journal of Training Research, 2016
Australia's vocational education and training (VET) qualifications comprise units of competency that are bundled together in qualifications and nestled in training packages developed for particular industries. This article argues that this model is broken and cannot be fixed by patching bits of the system. Competencybased training (CBT) is based on an atomistic ontology that results in the fragmentation of knowledge and the atomisation of skill. CBT underpins a fragmented VET system with thousands of qualifications. It facilitates a market that has resulted in: thousands of private providers; the erosion of technical and further education (TAFE) institutions as the public provider; the transfer of unprecedented amounts of public funding to private profits; and, scandals and rorts. The same atomistic ontology underpins VET qualifications, the VET system and the VET market. The article concludes by briefly discussing an alternative model of qualifications using the capabilities approach.
Building a National Vocational Education and Training System
The book is a policy history of the institutions established to manage vocational education and training in Australia since its nineteenth century origins. It utilises modern policy theory as a conceptual framework and explores several hypotheses derived from the contemporary Australian literature on federalism. Its central argument seeks to establish that vocational education policy has oscillated between two ideals, one strictly utilitarian, the other with a broader educational goal. Parallel is an exploration of why vocational education intermittently intrudes into high politics, but is largely ignored at remaining times.