Griffith University’s Prof. Stephen Billett has not one but two chapters in a new book “Opportunity Structures in Vocational Education and Training.”
In the first he sets out the ‘contemporary purposes for VET’ arguing that VET systems must be designed to meet both individual and societal needs. He identifies the following key purposes for VET which are interconnected and require coordinated action across providers, industry, and communities.
They are:
- enhancing engagement in VET – particularly among young people and their families. Because VET often suffers from a lower status compared to higher education, this can limit VET participation and the subsequent supply of skilled workers needed in the labour market. The importance of proactive engagement strategies including workplace exposure, partnerships with schools, and community involvement are all useful in helping learners better understand career opportunities
- helping learners identify suitable occupations – without appropriate guidance, learners may make poorly informed decisions, leading to disengagement or attrition
- initial occupational preparation – this is clearly a core function of VET but it needs to go beyond technical skills and also include adaptability, problem-solving, and broader “job readiness” capabilities
- provision of continuing education and training (CET) – this is a real strength of the Australian VET sector, with school leavers aged up to 19 years old making up only 15 percent of all VET students. As jobs and industries evolve, workers will need ongoing opportunities to update their skills and knowledge, and
- supporting workplace innovations – Billett reminds us that VET is not just about preparing individuals for careers, but can also play a real role in organisational and economic development.
In his second chapter, Billett highlights the central, typically national, role VET plays in a range of countries, including Australia. But he goes on to note that “Nation states, their regions and communities now face significant and sometimes existential challenges from the need to respond to climate change, enhanced global competition, accommodating mass migration, managing geopolitical tensions and addressing the need for greater self-reliance and self-sufficiency arising from those tensions.”
He argues that in this period of significant challenges, and because the way in which occupations are “practiced,” and how “performance requirements of work tasks differ across situations and circumstances”, it is now harder to “confidently and effectively” predict skills requirements at a national level. That in turn means that there is a need for VET providers to have partnerships across local communities to make sure that skills which are specified and detailed at the national level are properly tailored to meet local needs.
