In 2023 the Australian government, States and Territories agreed to a new National Skills Agreement. It contains commitments to a number of important initiatives which are currently being rolled out across the sector, such as the TAFE Centres of Excellence and the National Foundation Skills Strategy (for more on that see below).
There is another element of the Agreement which has just recently been released, that could prove to be a really useful tool for RTO planning.
Jurisdictional Action Plans
The National Skills Agreement is complemented by a National Skills Plan and Jurisdictional Action Plans. It is these state and territory action plans that are particularly worth reading, as RTOs go about their own strategic planning processes and ask themselves questions about what industries, regions and student cohorts they should be delivering training to?
Governments will publish their action plans under the NSA. Each identifies the priority industries and labour markets in their jurisdiction i.e. where employment growth is occurring and where more training is needed.
And here are some of the other things the different plans are focussed on:
- New South Wales is preparing to shift to an “outcomes-driven” funding model for the training it funds, and will “establish a new regional skills planning model that embeds stronger community-based decisions and supports collaboration, connection and innovation within local communities.”
- Western Australia has published a very comprehensive plan showing how the government’s VET initiatives fit with the state’s economic and employment priorities and other government commitments. The WA government notes that “part of the complexity in the State’s jobs market comes from skills mismatches in some areas” and outlines details of the “Diversify WA” blueprint which seeks to encourage more investment and therefore training in key priority sectors.
- Tasmania’s action plan is a subset of the Tasmanian Skills Plan. It identifies the challenges of delivering training to small, geographically dispersed populations where different regions have “unique industry profiles.” The importance of initiatives to support employers to ‘step up’ their training commitment, especially with Tasmania’s tight labour market and aging workforce are also highlighted in the plan.
- Queensland is making changes to how it funds training – with the introduction of the new Career Start program (incorporating the existing Certificate III Guarantee and User Choice programs, as well as Free TAFE) and the Career Boost program (which subsidises training at Certificate IV and above including Free TAFE, and training for upskilling and reskilling) both from July 2025, and the Career Ready program (which will incorporate VET in Schools funding and programs) from January 2026.
- Northern Territory is committed to the following targets in its plan: increase the number of apprentices in training by 1000, increase the First Nations VET workforce by 25%, support greater access to VET in regional and remote areas, and build and strengthen the workforce to support major projects across the NT.
Victorian Skills Plan
The Victorian government has also recently released the 2024-25 Victorian Skills Plan. It builds on previous plans and in addition to identifying priority industries, and initiatives to support training in these industry sectors, the plan’s priorities include: co-designing new qualifications (e.g. Modern Methods of Construction), microcredentials co-designed with industry, and improved RPL through the design of new RPL toolkits.
