Australia’s Skills Ministers met on November 18. The communique from that meeting highlights their priorities for VET reform. These include improving VET quality and relevance, strengthening tripartite and cross portfolio engagement, and delivering more meaningful evidence to inform skills policy. Jobs and Skills Australia has been established to help with this process.
Skills shortages are a big-ticket item, being addressed through the 180,000 Free TAFE and VET places. Work is also progressing to establish the new Industry Clusters from January 2023, and
“Skills Ministers have agreed to updates to the training package development policies to reflect the new industry engagement arrangements. Skills Ministers noted that these updates to the Training Package Organising Framework are the first steps in supporting a future qualifications model that can better respond to Australia’s skills needs.”
Improving apprentice completion rates is another item on the agenda. A discussion paper on Australian Apprenticeship Services and Support has been released for public consultation and we highlight this paper in another article in this final edition of VDC News for the year.
Information about the Skills Reform process and activities can be found here.