While universities wait on news of the government’s proposed accord there’s movement in voced

Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor met with state and territory colleagues Friday and agreed to a VET workforce blueprint, “to support, grow and retain a quality workforce.

It will, “identify effective strategies for the attraction and retention of a high-quality workforce, along with capability and career development strategies and succession planning.”

This will be especially interesting if it finally settles whether the VET workforce need more than a Certificate IV in teaching – it’s a perennially unanswered question (CMM June 22 2021).

Other substantial commitments from the meeting include;

* “ambitious timeframes to finalise development of a new system of VET qualifications,” including micro-credentials and “better recognition” of prior learning

* release of the revised draft standards for registered training organisations with consultation starting mid-month

* new planning agency Jobs and Skills Australia undertaking a labour force and skills capacity study of the clean-energy workforce, “to support transition from ‘brown’ to ‘green’ occupations.” This will “inform” development of “clean-energy qualifications and micro-credentials.”

And just in case anybody had forgotten that “TAFE” is Labor for “VET” the ministers’ agreed that the goal is a “a VET sector with TAFE at its heart” and that the immediate skills agreement “confirms TAFE’s central role in the VET sector.”