A new report from Jobs and Skills Australia has just been released with a focus on greater harmony between the VET and higher education sectors.
Refreshingly – it does not recommend merging the sectors or higher education taking over VET. Instead, the report, Opportunity and Productivity: Towards a Tertiary Harmonisation Roadmap:
- respects the differences between VET and higher education
- lays out the arguments for closer integration between the sectors (and explains why it would make life easier for students and improve Australia’s economic productivity), and
- does not suggest that an Australian government takeover of VET is the only way to bring about closer integration.
To the contrary, this report recognises the key role state and territory governments have in VET and seeks to fully engage officials from all jurisdictions along with all sector stakeholders, in the development of a roadmap that would genuinely bring the sectors closer together.
Firstly though – here is the authors’ high level summary of the case for tertiary harmonisation. It would:
- “enhance the ability of learners to navigate the education and training system to obtain the knowledge, skills and the ability to apply them, that they need to successfully participate in the labour market
- promote equity of access to universal high quality tertiary education
- correct for distortions in incentives for learners to participate in one part of the education and training system rather than another, and
- encourage VET providers, Higher Education providers and industry to collaborate in the provision of well-designed education and training programs to secure the development of the knowledge, skills and their application, needed for the Australian economy.”
With both of the principal authors of the report, Prof. Barney Glover, the Commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia and Prof. Peter Dawkins former interim JSA Commissioner, having run dual-sector universities; they, more than most people in government or the VET and higher education sectors, have a strong understanding of each sector – including the differences in the sectors and the areas where problems arise.
The industry background of Deputy JSA Commissioner, Megan Lilly, the union background of Deputy JSA Commissioner Trevor Gauld, and the strong economic expertise of JSA Executive Director, David Turvey have also contributed to the rigour of the recommendations in the report and its strategic practicality (ie it is not a complex report, but it also does not suggest simplistic solutions).
So what does it recommend?
It starts with eight recommendations to make a roadmap “possible”. They include – getting agreement from all governments to collaborate on a roadmap to harmonisation, agreeing that the roadmap needs to recognise “the two sectors being on an equal footing, drawing on their distinct strengths and complementary roles”, establishing an appropriate governance structure, specifying roles and responsibilities of government agencies, and – this is one of the very promising recommendations:
“Higher Education and VET providers are invited to express interest in being included in a recognised list of participants in collaborative harmonisation projects in a VET-Higher Education Collaboration Agenda…”
And this one:
“in the development of the roadmap, priority is given to drawing on the strengths of VET in driving skills development and growth in productivity. Furthermore, improving outcomes and experiences of individual students and their current and prospective employers is the central driver of the reform.”
The report then recommends some “early priorities” for the roadmap, including: a national credit transfer system, establishing an innovation fund to provide incentives to encourage greater collaboration between VET and higher education providers, developing guidelines for nested and hybrid qualifications, a systemic approach to enabling and preparatory courses between the two sectors that are nationally recognised and portable, consider using Commonwealth Supported Places (undergraduate university funding) for TAFEs, JSA to do research on how VET funding models “could be enhanced and also help foster collaboration with Higher Education and put VET on a level playing field with Higher Education.”
And then it recommends a further four medium-term recommendations related to the AQF, a National Skills Taxonomy, a national strategy to support industry and learners to navigate the tertiary sector, a Tertiary Education National Data Asset be created, and “develop a set of nationally agreed principles for tertiary education funding to support harmonisation.”
If there is support for this report it would be a game changer for VET, and for students looking to move from one sector to the other.
