We wrote a bit about skills passports in VDC News in October this year, arising – as it did – from the Employment White Paper. In that article we noted that while there might be positives about setting such a system up, a key issue was quality control of what the passport contains, especially if it was to contain non-formal education and other information that might be difficult to verify.
Just the other day, Craig Fowler, a former MD of NCVER, has given his insights on that topic in an article in Future Campus. He asks whether these passports are a game changer or just a new “e-cover on an old book”?
Easier and Simpler
As he points out, the skills passport notion boils down to having
‘easier and simpler’ processes for faster, more reliable and trustful information exchange between employers and employees/learners concerning hiring decisions – transactional ‘win-win’ benefits.
The rationale is for “graduates/employees to impress their qualifications on employers, become more employable and achieve career progression” and “enabling Australians to have their full range of qualifications, microcredentials, prior learning, workplace experience and general capabilities recognised across the education and training system and in the employment market.” (We’ll return to that issue later!)
But its development needs a business case he suggests and as the Government has acknowledged. In short, he’s asking is there a need for this, and is the need already being met, at least to some extent, through a variety of available platforms?
Craig argues there is already a fair bit out there and available both in Australia and internationally, and he points out in the article what is available. As he notes, however:
“The expectation is that individuals will have a role in control and maintenance of [the passport’s] content, currency, correctness, and liability for false entries that others may rely on.”
That’s a critical issue!
If a wide range of information is in scope for the passport, he suggests, “it strains any claims that it will be a ‘single source of truth’ given (part) self-management by individuals and as costs of verification escalate.”
Thus:
“Any business case on a skills passport will have to be absolutely clear on its purpose and limits. Is it to be designed and built for students, for employers, for both, for verification of credentials/licences, or as a ‘market’ for linking job seekers and employers? Perhaps the BCA only sees it as a ‘game changer’ if its structure is like the Singapore model [like My SkillsFuture], giving extra government-funding for ‘life-long’ skilling and learning.”
An afterthought?
Thinking about how to document generic skills students hold and have demonstrated
One of the things that would be useful in a skills passport, for students and graduates at least, would be to enable them to describe and detail the experiences they have had in developing and being assessed for their 21st Century and other generic skills – a thing which our current system based on training packages is not really all that good at doing. However, these skills are something prospective employers are vitally interested in when making recruitment choices. This is something, therefore, that a passport could be very concerned to document.
Delving back into the long history of work in VET, back in 2003 Rob Denton and David Curtis authored a paper for NCVER. It looked specifically at problem solving and aimed to develop, administer and evaluate an assessment tool, the problem-solving assessment instrument to assess and document problem solving ability in VET students in electrotechnology. The aim was to use authentic approaches, such as those undertaken on participants’ attempts to solve problems that occur routinely in their courses and on tasks that simulate tasks that are expected to be encountered in the workplace.
While this is not what Fowler specifically talks about, it does beg the question about how well we assess and document the assessment of things we already teach, or could teach more effectively, that really interest employers!
