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Recruiting and retaining vocational education and training (VET) educators is an increasing challenge in countries across the world. So understanding their transition and retention is vital to the development of a sustainable workforce. This paper draws on interviews with senior administrators of Australian training providers and survey data from practising VET teachers and trainers to identify factors that most influenced these educators to remain in what was, for most of them, a second or later career. The research found that the major influences on retention of new educators in VET were partly extrinsic, including employment conditions, lifestyle balance and support for professional development, and partly intrinsic, including a supportive culture and job satisfaction through enjoyment of teaching and giving back to industry. The findings provide training providers with a clear indication of what encourages educators to make a long-term commitment to VET teaching and what motivates them to perform at their best once they have made the transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the question: can you create a successful training system between companies geographically close to each other? The topics are: the possibility of a training system within companies (or "intrafirm" training); the positive impact on the performance of training derived from geographical proximity; the nature of the interfirm training group; the role of foreign and multinational companies; and finally the role of training providers. The article looks in depth at training knowledge spillover, the returns on this activity in terms of the cultivation of skills and other measurable factors, and the importance of such elements as the costs involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]