The estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research has updated its timeline of VET policy initiatives starting in 1980, to include last year, (the one-thing not updated as of yesterday was the headline).

And an extraordinary resource it is – setting out vast numbers of bright policy ideas that often shined but briefly.

The next time a minister announces a plan to fix stuff, consult the timeline – somebody will have tried something like it before.

In Features this morning

James Guthrie (Macquarie U) and Basil Tucker (Uni SA) on the “accountingisation” of research assessment. “Calculative practices and numbers become powerful forces determining the reputation of individuals, disciplines and the universities themselves and the progression of academics within them,” they argue.

plus Frank Larkins (Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education) looks at COVID-related job losses across the states and reports staff at NSW universities had the worst of it – with managements there appearing to anticipate more declines in student demand.

and Linda Corrin (Swinburne U) on cooking up a learning analytics storm. The ingredients are just the start. Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s new selection for her celebrated series, Needed know in teaching and learning.

The Senate committee considering the Greens Bill to stop ministers not funding ARC recommended research was due to report yesterday. It didn’t – needing more time “to consider the evidence and conclude its deliberations”  

Due date is now Monday, which still allows time for the Senate to vote on it, just not much. The Senate next sits Budget Week for two days (March 29 and 30). But even if the bill passed the upper house before the election it has no hope in the Reps and will lapse when parliament is prorogued.

But not to worry, the bill’s sponsor Senator Mehreen Faruqi (Greens NSW) is not up for re-election to 2025 and could bring it back in the next parliament. She did this with a previous version, introduced in 2018 which did not make it before the last election.

whoever holds the federal purse strings after the election will exert significant influence on a sector that espouses national priorities but is currently fragmented

By CLAIRE FIELD

As the country heads towards the next Federal election, it is timely to reflect on what the result will mean for the VET sector. A returned Coalition government will pursue efficient VET pricing and more funding contestability; whereas Labor is promising 45,000 new “free TAFE” places and the conversion of 420,000 existing VET places to “free TAFE.”

A raft of other reforms are underway which are likely to be progressed irrespective of the election outcome, including:

* a new model of industry engagement (Industry Clusters)

* reforms to simplify VET qualification design

* trials of new assessment models, and

* trials of new apprenticeship models.

It is funding for VET delivery though which is crucial and the latest data shows significant differences, despite apparent national agreement on VET priorities.

Micro-credentials for example are identified as a priority in the draft VET Reform Roadmap, yet only the New South Wales government currently provides significant funding for short courses (skillsets). In the first nine months of 2021, 20 per cent of government-funded VET students in NSW enrolled in skillsets. In Victoria it was just one per cent.

And while business is crying out for more workers with digital skills, only two per cent of government-funded enrolments were in IT courses, and despite shortages in healthcare workers only six per cent of government funded-enrolments were in Health. Further analysis is on my website.

My point here is not that one jurisdiction is doing better than another, or that only IT and Health are important; rather that whoever holds the federal purse strings after the election will exert significant influence on a sector that espouses national priorities but is currently fragmented.

And as we look to future reform, Gerald Burke’s latest work can contextualise those reform ideas and should be required reading for all parties to the next National Skills Agreement.

Gerald Burke is a keynote speaker at this year’s AVETRA annual conference. The conference comes at a critical time for the sector and begs the question “what role will evidence-based research have in the VET policy reforms of the next Federal government?”

Claire Field is a member of AVETRA. She recently interviewed Innovation Business Skills Australia’s  Sharon Robertson on the What now? What next? podcast to discuss the new Industry Cluster reforms.

 

Flinders U announces a new Matthew Flinders Fellow, Oren Griffiths (Education, Psychology and Social Work) plus six Matthew Flinders Professors, * Luciano Beheregaray (evolution and conservation biology) * Justin Chalker (renewable materials) * Karin Nordstrom (Motion Vision Group) * Janni Petersen (cancer cell biology) * Nick Spencer (neurophysiology of pain) * Lily Xiao (dementia care, chronic disease management)

Lisa Kewley is the new director of Centre for Astrophysics: Harvard and Smithsonian. She will move from the ANU based Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in Three Dimensions.

Sarah Lightfoot is confirmed as CEO of UNSW Global, she has been acting in the role since August.

Werner van der Merwe joins Swinburne U as inaugural VC Innovation and Enterprise. He moves from CSIRO.

Annette Schmiede (Uni Sydney and Uni Canberra adjunct) becomes acting CEO of the Digital Health CRC.