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This paper was a keynote address at the Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA) conference held in Canberra in April 2012. The author notes that industry is arguably the key stakeholder in the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector, but is not a single actor nor a disinterested consumer of training. Rather, industry consists of a range of bodies, all of whom are active players in the sector. The paper discusses six areas of research which are pertinent to industry. These areas are: (1) the value of completing an apprenticeship or traineeship; (2) the role of wages in completion rates for apprenticeships and traineeships; (3) the value of completion of VET qualifications; (4) the level of matching between what people are training in and the jobs they get; (5) the role of VET in innovation; and (6) VET and workforce development. All of this research raises questions about VET and industry, either in terms of how public training funds are allocated or the educational principles on which VET is based. In particular, the major points made are that the value of training is quite variable and this should be a consideration in its public funding, and the narrow industry focus of VET needs to be leavened with more general education. (Contains 5 tables, 8 figures and 2 footnotes.)

The educational discourse in recent years in Australia, and in particular NSW has been on advancing the status of the teaching profession through the development of a framework of standards, and by supporting the nature of teachers' work in addition to improving student-learning outcomes. The close link between student learning outcomes and quality mathematics teaching has resulted in the call for an increase in teacher accountability and quality. This paper is an exploration of the relevant literature that focused on the professionalisation of the teaching profession in Australia and its potential impact on teaching in Australia. [For the complete proceedings, "Shaping the Future of Mathematics Education. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (33rd, Freemantle, Western Australia, Australia, July 3-7, 2010)," see ED520764.]

This paper was presented at the 2009 Economic and Social Outlook Conference, November 5-6 at the University of Melbourne. It takes a sceptical view of the push for "green skills", arguing that skills required in the labour market evolve relatively slowly, and that the way business operates is driven by changing costs, new technologies and new regulations, with sustainability being only one of many factors. In addition, the presentation provides some data on "sustainable" courses in tertiary education and then looks at three areas which have implications for the public investment in education and training: the levels of skill acquired through apprenticeships and traineeships, the pay-off to undertaking VET qualifications, and the role of diplomas in the labour market. (Contains 9 tables, 3 figures, and 1 footnote.)

This paper was presented in Sydney in September 2008 at a seminar conducted by Skills Australia and the Academy of Social Sciences. It examines the demand for training. It concentrates on the factors that affect individual and employer demand, and points out that accredited vocational education and training (VET) need to be considered in the context of extensive use of non-accredited and on-the-job training. (Contains 3 footnotes, 9 tables and 1 figure.) [This work has been produced by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) on behalf of the Australian Government and state and territory governments with funding provided through the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.]

The vocational education and training (VET) sector has a long tradition of measuring and reporting outcomes. The public face of this is the "Annual National Report of the Australian Vocational Education and Training System" published (and tabled in the Commonwealth Parliament) since 1994. The reporting framework has undergone a number of changes corresponding to revision in high-level strategies developed by the former Australian National Training Authority (ANTA). This, however, is about to change. The catalyst for a radical examination of the reporting framework is the Council of Australian Governments' (COAG) reform agenda. This reform agenda is shaking up the funding relationships between the Commonwealth and the states and will place increasing reliance on measuring and reporting outcomes as distinct from focusing on the resources used (that is, inputs). In this paper, the author provides a history of performance measurement for the VET sector, beginning with the creation of the Australian National Training Authority and ending with what individuals know of the current reforms. As well as describing the various measures, he discusses the challenges that are thrown up by indicators. He concludes with his suggestions for indicators for the vocational education and training system. (Contains 7 footnotes.)

Recent research in the vocational education and training (VET) sector shows that students are gaining a range of benefits from their studies, beyond expected course outcomes. Students are developing new networks, and gaining confidence and self esteem through the respect received from their teachers and classmates. For some students, these advantages help them to find work and interact more easily with those around them. The networks and trust developed by students can also be referred to as "social capital." While many students are gaining social capital outcomes incidentally, these outcomes can also be actively developed. This paper, presented to Australian Learning Communities Network discusses the concept of social capital and examines the link between social capital and VET. The paper also outlines ways in which social capital can be developed through VET courses and partnerships. The research shows developing social capital can be particularly helpful for marginalised young people. [This work has been produced on behalf of the Australian Government and state and territory governments.]

Berwyn Clayton has been involved in the VET (vocational education and training) sector for over 25 years. After beginning her career as a teacher, Berwyn became a pioneer in promoting the value of research. With a record of over 30 publications and 25 conference papers or journal articles, Berwyn has created an impressive body of knowledge, particularly in areas such as assessment and the capability of the VET workforce. Berwyn is also dedicated to supporting and mentoring new researchers, in particular those who were formerly VET practitioners, as she was. Berwyn is currently the Director of the Work-based Education Research Centre (WERC) at Victoria University. It was these attributes that saw Berwyn named VET Researcher of the Year, and give a keynote speech at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research's 2011 National VET Research Conference (No Frills). This speech provides an insight into Berwyn's journey into VET research and demonstrates her hallmark presentation style using pictures (chosen for their amusing as well as didactic impact) to guide readers through the story. Her messages are directed at practitioner researchers. In her speech, she notes that researchers need consciously to go beyond their comfort zone and look impartially at issues from a different perspective, including that of their potential audiences. Practitioner researchers need to seek out mentors and they need to ensure they find the time to write up their work, so that it has a chance to influence practice beyond their immediate circle. Practitioner researchers should be prepared to cope with adverse reactions to--and sometimes misuse of--research findings. (Contains 1 footnote.)

The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) was asked by Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Directors Australia to consider, in a discussion paper for their conference held on the Gold Coast in September 2009, how a "tertiary education" sector impacts on the way people think about research and statistics. While a tertiary education focus would be a forward-looking step, it is important that both vocational education and training (VET) and higher education issues receive due attention. Individuals need to build on the good work done for the VET sector rather than subsume it in any sense. What is needed to make sense of the education, participation and achievement of individual students is an integrated tertiary education statistical system. This would require a common core set of standards. It would be relatively straightforward to populate a tertiary education student database from different collections. This database would then be a resource for policymakers and researchers. An integrated approach is required, not an approach which appends higher education statistics to the VET statistics or vice versa.

The governments of India and Australia are working to enhance cooperation on training, at both official and industry level. As part of the exchange of ideas, Francesca Beddie, General Manager, Research, National Centre for Vocational Education Research, visited India in August 2009 at the invitation of the Australia-India Council. This paper explores some of the common challenges the countries face in reforming their vocational training systems. (Contains 1 box and 1 footnote.) [Support for this report was provided by the Australia-India Council.]

The labour market is one the most significant markets in modern economies. Today labour embodies increasing amounts of human capital in the form of skills, talents and knowledge. Migration of workers between regions and countries can contribute to efficiency. People are moving from areas in which they are underemployed or unemployed to areas in which there is greater demand for their labour. Frequently the movement of people is across national or other administrative borders. Differences between jurisdictions in the way in which they recognise experience, skills and qualifications can subtract from the efficiency of the labour market. This paper outlines steps taken in the European Union (EU) to improve the mobility of skilled labour between EU countries. The interface between qualifications and the labour market is being addressed by the creation of extensive electronic networks providing workers with more information about potential jobs and employers with more meaningful information about potential applicants. Mobility of labour can be further enhanced by improving the portability of social security, health and pension benefits. The EU has also recognised that migrants are a substantial proportion of the EU workforce. In terms of mobility, they may be better placed than residents to take advantage of regional shifts in demand for labour, and impediments to their mobility between EU countries reduces the efficiency of the contribution they can make. The experience in both Australia and New Zealand recognises the economic benefits to be derived from geographic and jurisdictional labour mobility and especially of those aspects associated with the recognition of skills. It is different from the EU experience in two regards: (1) Cultural differences present in Europe are far less apparent in Australia and New Zealand; and (2) Registration in one jurisdiction was a basis for eligibility for registration in all jurisdictions. The Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Arrangement (TTMRA) and Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) between the Australian Government and the governments of the eight Australian states and territories are cited as potential models for other countries considering a similar strategy. (Contains 7 footnotes.) [Partial funding for this paper was obtained from a grant from the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements.]

The proposed quality assurance framework for higher education in Australia will, for the first time since the early 1990s, introduce a process of external quality monitoring through the auspices of the Australian Universities Quality Agency. There is little research that evaluates the impact of external monitoring on the experiences of staff, organizational and workplace culture, and perceptions of quality within an institution. This paper provides an evaluation framework for investigating the effects of external monitoring on elements of institutional culture and perceptions of quality in teaching and learning. The paper explores issues of causality in evaluating academic audit as a quality management intervention in a tertiary institution and across the sector as a whole. It also explores criteria for evaluating the impact of audit on institutional culture and practices, as well as practitioners views of the impact of external quality monitoring on their own workplaces. (Contains 36 references.) (Author)

This paper describes responses to linguistic pluralism in Australian policy in relation to Australia's Asian language context, and the teaching and learning of Japanese within these two frameworks. Finally, the paper considers some ideas relating intercultural language learning to all second language study termed: the Third Place. There are three approaches typically taken toward multilingualism in a given society, looking at multilingualism as a problem, a right, or a resource. Australia viewed multilingualism as a problem through the middle of the 1970s. This eventually led to a contestation of that approach, which culminated in the language as a right movement, which gained considerable ground in the later 1970s and through the 1980s. By the 1990s, the language a resource school began to gain influence. Regarding multilingualism as a resource involves construing the diversity of languages within the community as a public as well as an individual benefit and fashioning public policies accordingly. All of Australia's languages are reviewed, including a review of the role of Japanese language studies in Australian education and Japanese studies. Cultures, general knowledge, and intercultural language teaching are also discussed. (Contains 18 references.) (KFT)

Australian employers' appraisal and use of vocational education and training (VET) qualifications were examined through case studies of 15 small, medium, and large organizations in 8 of Australia's "old" and "new" economy industries. Data were collected through interviews with management/employer representatives, middle managers, and union representatives at each organization and a company profile that was administered during the site visits. Employer confidence in the ability of Australian VET providers to meet business needs was mixed. Although providing training was not part of their core business or primary focus, they generally considered it important in supporting their business goals. This view was particularly evident in the use of training for recruitment and for meeting legislative requirements. All sectors but the surfing industry used formal training. The employers were also ambivalent toward training providers. Their comments on training providers were generally negative, in some cases, expressing the view that all training is lacking but training supplied to their own organization was satisfactory. When asked what they want in VET training, the employers mentioned flexibility of VET qualifications and training, flexibility in delivery, and training organizations that listen to and are responsive to business needs. A need for greater understanding and knowledge of recent changes to Australia's national training system was identified. (Contains 60 references.) (MN)

The Centre for Research and Learning in Regional Australia is investigating the elements of social capital and developing a set of indicators that show when social capital is building. The indicators can be used where groups or organizations with a shared purpose engage in productive interactions that benefit not only the individual member groups but also the "learning community" as a whole. The intention is that the indicators will be applicable to geographic communities, professional or common interest communities, such as professional associations, and groups of businesses such as Executive Link[TM], the subject of this paper. Executive Link consists of farm businesses that meet for nonformal training in several chapters in eastern Australia. Each chapter consists of about six farm businesses and their owner/managers who share their business management expertise. Executive Link appears to have features of a learning community, including a shared purpose and learning interactions across the boundaries of individual member businesses and chapters. This paper identifies networks, commitments, and shared values as the elements of social capital that contribute to the quality of learning interactions. Suggested indicators of social capital building include development of a shared language, shared experiences, trust, self-development, and an identification with the community. (Contains 25 references.) (Author/TD)

This paper discusses the need for increasing the provision of education and training in Australia and the problems in financing it. Section 1 discusses the problems to be addressed: need for more education and training due to technological and global change affecting employment and unemployment, together with the aging of the population. Section 2 briefly reviews the extent to which Australia appears to be addressing the needs. It considers the changes in institutional education and in employer-based training in recent years, looking at issues of participation and intensity, quality, and inequality for younger and older persons. Section 3 considers the restrictions in public expenditure and the various policy changes accompanying it. Section 4 addresses options in ways of providing finance that will encourage the direction of funds for education and training to the areas of most need. These schemes for payment by governments, individuals, and employers are discussed: public funds (entitlements, student assistance--Youth Allowance); payments by individuals (increased fees, increased fees plus access to interest bearing private loans, increased fees plus contingent loans financed by the government as in the Higher Education Contribution Scheme); and increasing employer funding through government-mandated levels of training, social partnerships in training, and employer reporting of intellectual capital. (Contains 31 references and 9 tables.) (YLB)

The United States is in need of new strategies to address the historic inequity of access to its colleges and universities. Australia, with its system of deferred tuition and income-contingent repayment, can serve as a source of insight and guidance in addressing this problem and function as an interesting and helpful comparative case. In this study, a review of research on the efficacy of Australia's Higher Education Contribution Scheme is combined with an analysis of interviews conducted with 17 stakeholders from within and outside the Australian university system in which participants shared their views on the extent to which beliefs and values regarding the private and public benefits of higher education influence policy development and legislation and the merits of various alternative university finance and government models. Consideration is given to the applicability of the Australian model as a means of improving higher education access in the United States. (Contains 47 references.) (Author/SLD)

The implementation of an educational reform and the subsequent reconfiguration of curricula in a competency format prompted research into the learning experiences of students within a newly reconfigured competency-based curriculum. The curriculum was the technical and further education (TAFE) New South Wales (NSW) Tertiary Preparation Certificate III, first implemented in 1983 as a transition course to further education for adults. Adoption of the particular research perspective for the practitioner researcher in this case was dependent on factors that included nature and purpose of the research; experiences of the researcher within their practice; practitioner's conceptualization of being in the world; and pragmatic considerations, such as time and access. Consideration of these factors led the practitioner researcher to adopt an eclectic Symbolic Interactionist theoretical framework along with its methodology of participant observation. A model of practitioner research was proposed as a way of conceptualizing the conflicting yet complementary roles of teacher and researcher. Key characteristics of the three roles of teacher, course coordinator, and researcher were established, and a graphic representation was developed of these characteristics and the types of interaction and skills involved in each. (Contains 31 references.) (YLB)

The socioeconomic contributions of adult learning to community were examined from a social capital perspective. The concepts of human capital and social capital were differentiated, and the relationship between learning, human capital, and social capital was explored. The relevance of social capital in describing the wider benefits of adult learning was illustrated through the examples of a study of the impact of the adult and community education (ACE) sector on communities and society in Victoria, Australia, and a study of a group of African women refugees located in a suburb of a large Australian capital city. The studies documented wider benefits of ACE in the following areas: health; education and learning; employment and quality of working life; time and leisure; command over goods and services; physical environment; social environment; and personal safety. Social capital building was shown to be implicated in effective adult learning in the following ways: (1) social capital is involved in program design, management, and delivery whether it is explicitly recognized as such or not; (2) the processes of drawing on and building social capital are part and parcel of the learning process; and (3) social capital can be a direct or indirect benefit of learning. (Contains 27 references.) (MN)

The question of the extent to which effective leadership in vocational education and training (VET) depends on the specific context in which it occurs was examined. Data were collected from the following sources: an intensive literature analysis; studies of purposive sample of 12 diverse VET sites across Australia; and individual interviews with 48 individuals and group interviews with approximately 60 individuals at the 12 sites. The data from the sites were assembled and subjected to preliminary analysis. Selected emerging results were reported. The following attributes were deemed important leadership characteristics: (1) envisages future trends and their impacts on current strategies; (2) demonstrates interpersonal skills by talking and listening to others and establishing rapport; and (3) works to understand the personalities, motivations, and other diverse qualities of people. The following different "takes" on effective VET leadership were identified: (1) leadership is initiated and carried by a single "leader" or manager; (2) leadership is encouragement of each employee; (3) leaders must see the big picture and translate it into each staff member's own contribution so they perform at their best; (4) people are essentially born leaders; and (5) leadership is about enabling people to develop and grow within an environment of increasing complexity and change. (Contains 33 references.) (MN)

This paper clarifies the problems of meaning and translation into practice of concepts of "quality" in higher education by examining a quality improvement program at Griffith University (Queensland, Australia). The paper notes that Australian government agencies have advanced a quality assurance (QA) approach concerned with the imposition of externally defined versions of what universities stand for and of their contribution to the economic enhancement of the states, an approach which may not be in the best long term interests of the groups inside or outside the universities. The paper describes an alternative approach, the quality improvement (QI) model which emphasizes individual and corporate development and which satisfies the needs of various internal stakeholders and takes into account the external pressures of accountability inherent in QA. A description of the QI project at Griffith University shows how it is trying to bridge the gap between external accountability and internal transformation. By working within specific sites inside the University, the project aims at the internationalization of a culture that values quality in all of its variant forms and the development of a quality driven institutional culture across the University. Contains 12 references. (JB)