8 December 2021
EDITION 23 - 2021
It’s a wrap – VDC Virtual Teaching & Learning Conference
VDC continued the 15-year tradition of providing one of Australia’s leading Teaching and Learning Conferences for VET practitioners from public, private and community providers.
Running for two days, over the 18th and 19th of November, the theme for this year’s VDC conference spotlighted ‘Creativity, Connectivity, Productivity’.
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Attracting industry experts into the VET fold
Regular readers will be aware that we foreshadowed this report entitled ‘VET practitioners: ‘Getting ‘em and keeping ‘em’ in an earlier article. The full report is out now, published by NCVER.
It points out that ‘becoming a VET practitioner is an ongoing journey, not a destination’. That journey involves vocational and educational preparation; a transition to VET; and continuing practice and updating of skills to maintain the dual professionalism that is required to train, assess and respond to the changing needs of industry.
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Are people making full use of the skills they have?
This is the essence of the question raised in a recent NCVER report. It notes that ‘while skills development has long been a focus of policy-makers, ensuring the use of those skills has received much less attention.’
Ensuring effective use is made of existing skills leads to ‘increased productivity, higher levels of staff satisfaction and retention, and maximising the return on investment in skills development,’ the report suggests.
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NCVER publishes a ‘research synthesis’ on the apprentice and traineeship system
The National Centre for Vocational Education and Research (NCVER) has just released a timely piece on post-school apprenticeships and traineeships. It suggests that completions and completion rates are still a concern, and that incentives play an important role in encouraging and supporting apprenticeships and traineeships, but these need to be carefully calibrated.
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Can the VET and higher education sectors be better integrated?
Yet another report from NCVER (yes, this issue of VDC News is also a bumper NCVER one!) explores whether aligning VET and higher education (HE) can be better aligned ‘to enable students to move between, and draw from, both sectors.’
As the title suggests, it’s about trying to ‘have the best of both worlds.’ The thought has been around for long time, but what would help make it a reality?
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Opinion piece – Inertia: the enemy of Australian VET?
Regular readers of VDC News and anyone else with a vital interest in Australia’s VET system could not fail to notice all that is currently happening in the name of VET and skills reform.
These are focused on strengthening the role of industry and employers in the VET system, improving VET qualifications, and better supporting high-quality training delivery. It includes a move to industry clusters, the development of a VET workforce strategy, exploring the possibility of some RTOs self-assuring their quality and reforming the quality standards that drive regulators’ activities.
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UPCOMING VDC PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
