VET News

Improving the Quality and Relevance of Vocational Education and Training in Australia

It seems through these unprecedented times of COVID-19 our dependence upon digital technologies has never been more apparent.  The need to communicate to keep our businesses alive, our families in touch and our children educated remains at the centre of our society, our relationships, our economy and our everyday way of life.  

With each week we read more and more about investments into technological change, using digital platforms and technologies to keep our businesses and communications able and our workforce upskilled.  Never before have we been faced with stark considerations for the future and pending visions of what things may look like on the other side of COVID-19.  

The Australian Computing Academy (ACA) has worked hard to deliver resources to students and school teachers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, they added functionality to their website to enable teachers to follow students’ work while they were at home, replicating a ‘real-life’ classroom environment.

The Australian Government has also now invested more than $9 million in Australian Digital Technologies Challenges, which provides free online activities for students in Years 3 to 8.  The initiative is being delivered to schools across the country by the ACA who is also offering a program known as Dive into Code, which provides a suite of fun and engaging coding activities for students in Years 3 to 12. 

In addition to the Digital Technologies Challenges, the ACA has also introduced the Schools Cyber Security Challenges for students in years 7 to 12.  These classroom-ready challenges provide high school teachers with resources to support the teaching of cyber security concepts, and to inform students of career opportunities in the field.  

Dr. James R. Curren, Associate Professor for the ACA said that the program has been a great success.

"So far, we've had 100,000 enrolments in these cyber security challenges that do two things - teach kids cyber security skills and knowledge, and also give kids an awareness of what career opportunities there are in cyber security', Dr Curran said. 

Indeed, once these children with newly equipped skills for the future leave school, they will enter a phase of learning quite different to that received by adult learners today.  Further and higher education institutions may likely be required to take on these newly skilled generations of the future and continue to feed their technological knowledge and skills.  With that said, if we turn back the clock to today, where does vocational education and training sit in these current times of online communications and digital dependence and where will it sit in the future?

In response to COVID-19, Commonwealth, State and Territory Skills Ministers have met to advance priorities to support Australia’s critical skills and training needs and continue progressing reforms that will deliver a strong vocational education and training (VET) system for students, employers and industry.

Ministers confirmed the central role that an accessible, relevant and high-quality training system will have in Australia’s economic recovery.  Strengthening Australia’s skills and training system is a priority for recovery and now, more than ever, a responsive and adaptable system is needed that is able to meet the needs of learners and the economy.

Through signing of the Heads of Agreement for Skills Reform, seven jurisdictions have committed to immediate reforms to improve VET quality and relevance along with a set of high-level reform priorities which will be worked through in detail as part of the negotiation of a new national skills funding agreement.

The Heads of Agreement, in combination with the JobTrainer Fund, forms a vital part of the economic recovery.  

Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business, Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash said the JobTrainer Fund is expected to provide for around an additional 340,700 training places for school leavers, and help upskill and retrain jobseekers.

“JobTrainer is a significant joint investment by the Commonwealth and states and territories in skills and in supporting people into jobs,” Minister Cash said. “It will not only be central to providing Australians with new opportunities, but it will be central to our economic recovery.”

The Skills Council also discussed new architecture for Commonwealth-State relations under National Cabinet and the National Federation Reform Council.

The National Cabinet Review of COAG Councils and Ministerial Forums is currently underway, with recommendations on the best model for Commonwealth-State relations expected in September 2020.

While the review is underway, Skills Ministers continue to meet to progress critical priorities and to fulfil regulatory and legislative requirements.

Click below links for access to source information:

• Fostering High-Tech Workers of the Future
• 31 July 2020 Meeting Communique
• Prime Ministers JobTrainer Media Release

Date posted Aug 6, 2020