Translating Practice into Research: How We Have Come To Define and Structure 'Vocational' Education.

One possible explanation for Australia's technical and further education's (TAFE's) defensiveness in its relationship with higher education is its lack of a secure definition since its foundation by the Kangan committee. Perhaps vocational education could found its identity on another characteristic. Neither an analysis of various definitions of vocational education nor an examination of the arrangements in some states in the United States and Canadian provinces provides an entirely satisfactory role for Australia's vocational education and training institutes. Vocational education has been defined as a training of the hand rather than an education of the mind; in contrast to general and liberal education; as practical, applied education; and by educational and occupational levels. Most comparable North American institutions offer the first two years of the four-year baccalaureate awarded by universities. There has been some interest in establishing institutions with a similar role in Australia, but the benefits from such a development do not seem great enough to compensate for the extensive restructuring of the existing sectors that would be required. The most similar bodies to Australia's TAFE institutes are Ontario's colleges of applied arts and technology. They provide a useful comparison for Australian vocational education, but they are unusual in North America and a limited example for TAFE's identity. (Contains 46 references.) (YLB)