CCA held its conference over two days in mid-September in Sydney. Conference MC Chemène Simson provided her take on the event’s 5 ‘takeaways’ after two intense days of presentations.
VDC’s own virtual conference will be here sooner than we think, in mid-November.
Chemène’s takeaways
In an article on CCA’s website Chemène highlighted what she termed were a series of “outstanding presentations and discussions.” There was a wide range of inspirational speakers, she suggests including many luminaries drawn from community education, academia and the broader VET sector.
To quote her, the ‘takeaways’ were:
“1) State and Federal governments see skills and training as big priorities, with foundation skills – including literacy, numeracy and digital literacy – emphasised in most presentations and discussions… including those of politicians and practitioners alike.
2) There is an appetite [in her words] to ‘restore the heart of VET’ and ensure that we aim for ‘compliance and beyond’ with our programs.
3) To offer quality, impactful programs, we must first define our purpose – why we exist – then go from there.
4) We must prioritise upskilling the training workforce if we are to fill increasingly urgent workforce deficits (for example, in aged care) – de-cluttering qualifications and ensuring they cover what is needed for work (and nothing else) is an essential step to increase course completion and ensure graduates are ready for work.
5) The adult and community education (ACE) sector is uniquely positioned to welcome and offer disadvantaged people accessible pathways back into education – the trick is to use data and real-world stories to demonstrate the value that ACE providers offer.”
This article was complimented by another drawing on Hugh Guthrie’s presentation to the conference which talked about delivering high quality VET, albeit with a community education twist.
This means we can now hardly wait for VDC’s own virtual conference to be held on 17-18 November next. You can get some details about it here.
