This recent paper, published under the banner of AVETRA (the Australasian Vocational Education and Training Research Association), “provides a comprehensive review of the research literature on the challenges and opportunities around capturing and incorporating student voice into vocational education and training design.”
Produced through funding from the Victorian Skills Authority and authored by Drs Seth Brown, Scott Phillips and James Goring, it concludes that, at a variety of levels, student voices enable “students, staff and other stakeholders in the vocational education and training (VET) sector to listen to and involve students in the decision-making processes and design of the curriculum.” The voices also help to yield insights about VET’s practices, mechanisms, tools and strategies so that training programs can work best for students and industry.
The paper suggests that “listening to students’ voices is critical to identifying what sorts of skills and qualifications students and industry are seeking,” and these include the critical 21st Century transferable skills. The paper points out that “the voice of students is also important for informing VET teachers and provider institutions with insights into how students want to learn.”
The authors identify 9 areas they suggest need further consideration in relation to recognising and building the value of the student voice. A number of these include:
- Recognising and embedding student voices is integral to calls for “a more collaborative and evidence-driven approach to delivering high quality, responsive and accessible education and training to boost productivity and support Australians to obtain the skills they need to participate and prosper in the modern economy.” VET providers need to build student voice mechanisms into their strategic and operational plans so these become part of a new ‘business as usual’ and “provide evidence for continuous improvement.”
- Developing a concise, nationally consistent framework of principles, tools and strategies that VET provider institutions that can be utilised when shaping their student voice mechanisms is also needed.
- Involving students and responding to their voices to contribute to “collaborative learning and the co-design of learning materials, spaces and projects that will shape the specific and transversal skills required by current and emerging industries” is also required. Thus, “VET providers could be encouraged and enabled to co-design their skills development programs in partnership with local students and industry stakeholders.”
- Assisting VET teachers, education managers, and other VET practitioners engaged in qualification/curriculum design and delivery “to obtain training in methods for listening to students about the skills they wish to acquire” (i.e. what they want to learn) and the collaborative and co-design methods used in the delivery of their program (i.e. how they want to learn) is also a requirement. This might be addressed through professional development programs and may also be through some attention to the content of the Certificate IV TAE.
- Seizing the opportunity “for students, staff and other stakeholders in the VET sector to work in partnership and collaboration to develop students’ critical thinking skills and involve them in providing solutions to both global and local challenges” is also a must.
- Considering the ways in which students can “increasingly explore and communicate their options and aspirations via digital platforms and gateway websites,” and considering “how incorporating student voice mechanisms into these digital platforms and gateways can facilitate students in identifying the vocational skills program they want to pursue” is important, and finally
- Considering ways in which students could inform policy and program design and delivery and the VET reform agenda by developing quadripartite processes (involving representatives of governments, unions, industry and students) to enable the systematic inclusion of student voices into the shaping of VET policy, program and qualifications redesign and reform work will help.
