Fewer people are starting an apprentice or traineeship, the latest early trend estimates for trade and non-trade commencements shows.

Estimates, released by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), Apprentices and Trainees 2013 – early trend estimates, March quarter, show that non-trade commencements have settled to a new level around 30 000.

“The substantial growth in non-trade commencements up to the June quarter 2012, and the subsequent decline from the September quarter, is predominantly due to changes to incentive payments for existing workers,” said Tom Karmel, managing director, NCVER.

From 1 July, 2012 the government discontinued the $1500 standard employer commencement incentive payment and increased the standard completion incentive by $500 to $3000 for existing worker apprentices and trainees in non-National Skills Needs List occupations.

Trade commencements remained relatively stable with 21,500 commencements reported in the March 2013 quarter.

Forecasts say the nursing workforce will soon be in crisis, so why can’t nursing grads get jobs? By Antonia Maiolo

The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) estimates that only half of the nurses that graduated in South Australia last year have been employed, only 30 per cent of nurses in Tasmania, and as few as 10 per cent in Queensland. The union said 800 graduates were without employment in Victoria.

In other states nursing graduates are experiencing the same problem, with little to no employment available.

To try and secure funding for the employment of graduate nurses and midwives, the South Australian branch of the ANF has launched an online petition via social media in a bid to capture the attention of premier Jay Weatherill.

Only 50 per cent of the nurses who graduated in South Australia last year have been employed, and of those, only 30 per cent remained in the state.

Adjunct associate professor Elizabeth Dabars, CEO of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA Branch) said nurses are getting really frustrated over the lack of jobs after being actively encouraged to pursue nursing and midwifery as a career.

Dabars believes that by 2025 South Australia will be approximately 25,000 nurses short if this issue is not addressed now, adding that the only way to avoid this is to capture graduates now.

“The next generation of nurses will simply not be there and will need an urgent financial investment then with an inferior result, as the skills we need for the future cannot simply be learnt overnight,” Dabars said.

“We need graduates to be in work, developing clinical skills and gaining specialist knowledge to replace the nurses that will be lost as they retire over the next 5-10 years.”

Professor Alison Kitson, head of the school of Nursing at the University of Adelaide said all the work force data from Health Workforce Australia and other government agencies identifies the projected shortfall in nursing over the next decade.

Kitson said if these projections are accurate then the industry is facing a significant crisis, which makes the apparent oversupply of newly-qualified graduates where they are not finding jobs even more confusing.

“However when you look at why new graduates are not getting jobs it’s to do with health cut backs,” Kitson said.

Kitson said there are plenty of jobs out there for nursing graduates but that they will need to be flexible and be prepared to travel.

Nursing graduates in Queensland are facing similar struggles in finding jobs.

As of April, 775 FTE nursing and midwifery positions have been cut, out of a total of 3539 FTE jobs cut from Queensland Health, according to the Queensland Nurses’ Union

Queensland Nurses’ Union secretary Beth Mohle said there are not going to be many jobs for graduates if existing jobs of nurses and midwives are being slashed.

“I have met graduates who are working in petrol stations, supermarkets, cafes and boutiques,” Mohle said.

“They are devastated about not being able to find meaningful employment in their chosen profession.”

According to Queensland Health, a lack of job vacancies for newly-qualified graduates could be attributed to reduced level of nursing staff turnover with workers choosing to retire later in their careers.

The department’s chief nursing and midwifery officer Dr Frances Hughes said nursing students, just like other university students are not guaranteed a job upon graduating. Hughes encourages all universities to remain in close contact with their local hospital and health service to determine the current and future demand for graduates.

“Unfortunately, this is a timing issue which is also occurring interstate and internationally but I have no doubt Queensland will need more nurses in the near future,” Hughes said.

Professor Ysanne Chapman, dean of the school and midwifery at Central Queensland University said although CSU students are getting jobs in Queensland as well as interstate, vacancies are limited.

Chapman said fewer opportunities for new graduates can be attributed to funding cuts to Queensland Health and staff permanent staff choosing to stay on at their current job. 

Disadvantaged students will be hardest hit by federal plans to cut $2.8 billion in funding from higher education, according to senior university staff. By Antonia Maiolo

Victoria University (VU) reported it stands to lose up to $4.4 million a year under the federal government’s proposal to cut funding to Australian universities to pay for the Gonksi reforms.

VU’s vice-chancellor professor Peter Dawkins expressed disappointment over the government’s decision to reduce university funding.

Dawkins said whilst he believes in increased investment in the school sector, taking funding from universities sends a “mixed message”.

“It suggests that education funding is a zero sum game, but many studies have shown that public money invested in education at all levels returns a positive economic and social benefit to the country,” Dawkins said.

“If school students get a better opportunity for a flying start in life, but are then unable to access good quality tertiary education, then this defeats the whole purpose of investing in education.”

Friends of Victoria University spokesman Paul Adams said VU was already bearing the impact of the state government’s $40 million funding cuts to TAFE which lead to staff and course closures last year. He said that these new cuts are “counter-productive” and will harm disadvantaged students.

At dual-sector Universities such as VU the cuts will be absorbed across the entire University and will include TAFE, according to Adams. “And closing more TAFE courses basically undermines the opportunities of low SES students who have not been able to get a fair go in secondary education,” he said.

“VU’s large numbers of SES students, highest of any uni in the metropolitan region, are likely to be highly cost sensitive and withdraw from courses because of the lack of scholarship support and higher cost for their course upon finishing,” Adams said.

He said the Victorian TAFE cuts of last year led to a significant drop in student numbers.

Adams also said VU has already shed 400 staff, including lecturers, teachers, and general staff, and said it is likely that these new cuts will lead to a new round of redundancies.

VU’s vice-chancellor said that the University’s management would have to make “difficult decisions” about how to accommodate these cuts.

The University of Western Sydney which has a significant number of low SES students reports they too will suffer under the federal funding cuts.

Vice-chancellor professor Janice Reid said three-quarters of the university’s 41,000 students are from western Sydney.

“Of these roughly 24 per cent are from low-socioeconomic backgrounds,” Reid said

“Where is the logic in hurting one group to help another? Surely the government could find savings in other areas that won’t limit opportunities for our region’s families and students.”

Reid said the efficiency dividend, an annual reduction in funding to universities by 2 per cent, would reduce UWS’s Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding by almost $15 million.

The changes to the Student Start Up Scholarship for students facing financial hardship  – which will now become a loan instead of a scholarship – will increase the debt burden on those least able to afford tertiary study, according to UWS.

“It is ironical that with all the political attention focused on supporting the growth and development of western Sydney, we here in the west are then expected to do the majority of the heavy lifting to deliver national budget commitments” Reid said.

The University said it will continue to press both sides of politics that the people of western Sydney are not further disadvantaged and that they can access higher education regardless of their economic circumstance. 

 As the pace of change accelerates in our workplaces, we must make sure we are skilling up in ways that are going to match future needs. By Philip Bullock

It’s never been easy to predict which skills and qualifications are going to be in demand in the future.

And as Australia adjusts to keep pace in an increasingly technological and competitive world, predicting how the future will look seems even more difficult.

Amidst the uncertainty, a new report by the Australian Workforce Productivity Agency (AWPA) throws some light on the type of capacities and level of skills Australians will need in the years to 2025.

Future focus, 2013 National Workforce Development Strategy uses four scenarios to look at potential future demand for skills and qualifications. AWPA commissioned Deloitte Access economics to model The Long Boom, Smart Recovery, Terms of Trade Shock and Ring of Fire scenarios to develop projections of demand for jobs and skills in Australia’s workforce in the years to 2025.

Despite their differences the scenarios throw up common findings on the skills and capacities Australians will need if they are to prosper in the new world of work.

The influence of new technologies, globalisation, an emerging Asia and our ageing population will be pervasive in the workforce of tomorrow and will determine new patterns of work and mobility.

Professional and managerial occupations will grow fastest, while health care and social assistance, professional, scientific and technical services and education and training will be Australia’s most rapidly expanding industries.

As well as higher qualifications, non-industry specific skills such as flexibility, adaptive capacity, teamwork, leadership and entrepreneurial skills will be increasingly sought-after. ‘Work-ready’ graduates with industry-based training experience will also be highly valued.

Growing call for greater skills

Future focus modelling shows demand for higher qualifications will increase in Australia in the years to 2025.

Currently almost 60 per cent of our workforce has a post school qualification. Under the three higher growth scenarios, this is projected to increase to more than 70 per cent.

Under boom conditions, industry demand for undergraduate qualifications will increase by 4.1 per cent each year.

If the global downturn depresses growth in Australia over the next couple of years, demand for undergraduates will still increase annually by 3.3 per cent.

Similarly, demand for diplomas and advanced diplomas is set to increase by 3.7 per cent per year under a long boom, and by 3.3 per cent even under a lower growth scenario where commodities prices drop and the economy restructures.

Lifting public and private investment in our tertiary sector by at least three per cent per year will bring economic and social benefits which far outweigh the costs.

Higher skills bring new synergies to workplaces and will be needed to drive up Australia’s lagging innovation and productivity rates.

Thirty per cent of innovative Australian businesses have identified a lack of skilled people as a barrier to innovation, and this must change.

Leadership and management skills will be increasingly in demand to ensure that skills are used to best advantage to promote innovation and productivity.

In skilling up our population Australia needs to make sure people with lower qualifications are not left behind and that they are supported to progress to higher levels. Likewise, less advantaged sectors of our population will need more support to engage in education.

The need to be flexible and adaptable

The notion of a ‘job for life’ is largely a thing of the past with over 50 per cent of Australians staying in their jobs for less than five years and around 24 per cent of our workforce now employed on a casual basis.

In the future, demand for flexibility and mobility from both employers and employees is likely to increase as our workforce becomes more globalised, interconnected and diverse. Individuals will need flexible, generic skills so they can respond to change creatively and transition across occupations and industries throughout their working lives.

Good foundations in language, literacy and numeracy and science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects will be crucial to support adaptability and movement within and between industries and occupations.

While individuals will need a good adaptive capacity in order to embrace future work opportunities and navigate change, our tertiary system will also need to become more responsive to changing industry and individual needs.

Future focus recommends a range of measures to ensure quality and adaptive capacity is strengthened in our tertiary sector including: a review of VET sector base funding levels; a new national body to drive excellence in VET; and a review of interfaces between VET and higher education to create more integrated and flexible learning pathways between the two.

Lifelong career development

Having access to high quality, industry-aligned career development advice is becoming increasingly important as our higher education and VET sectors move towards demand-based funding and our workforce becomes more mobile.

In these changing times, AWPA believes people of all ages and cohorts should have access to independent career advice throughout their working lives so they can make informed choices and proactively manage their careers.

Greater industry involvement is needed to ensure that the advice is aligned to ‘real life’ and market needs.

Improving the provision of career advice could also help lift tertiary education retention rates.

Only two of Australia’s 39 universities currently have attrition rates below 10 per cent for first-year domestic students, while VET qualification completions are estimated to average 28.4 per cent.

‘Work ready’ graduates

Employers routinely rank work experience as among the most important attributes they need in their staff. Participation in work-integrated learning, as part of a formal curriculum or through co-curricular means, helps to develop work readiness and encourages greater collaboration and increased industry ownership of skills development.

Gaining experience of a real-world working environment enables students and graduates to develop an awareness of workplace cultures and expectations, gain practical skills, build networks and develop ‘soft’ skills in communication, teamwork and leadership.

Workplaces get an injection of new talent and new ideas while employers develop links with education institutions and other providers.

In Australia, opportunities exist for novice workers in some industries and occupations, but this is not true across the board. If we are to bridge the ‘experience gap’, opportunities for novice workers and new entrants need to be made more widely available across all industries.

Our VET sector has always had strong links with industry. While work-integrated learning is now increasingly a feature of higher education as well, more needs to be done to foster partnerships with industry — for example through a professional cadetships program— and further develop work-integrated learning opportunities in university degrees.

This would encourage greater collaboration and increased industry ownership of skills development.

Investing for the future

Future focus looks at how Australia can position itself to meet future skills and workforce development needs, regardless of what the future holds.

How well Australia does in educating its workforce and in developing and using our skills in workplaces will help determine our living standards into the future.

The economic and social outcomes of investing in the skills of our future workforce will far outweigh the costs.

Philip Bullock is the chair of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency.

Emphasis on the fostering of learning is underrated. By Liz Harris

The leading weekly business newspaper in Western Australia, WA Business News, often features lots of men in expensive suits and reports regularly on news in the finance, property development and resources sectors.

I was pretty impressed then when I read an article in WA Business News early last year by journalist Joe Poprzeczny discussing the Gonski report, and the importance of building a strong culture of learning in Australia.

Poprzeczny concluded that to improve learning outcomes to match “the pack now ahead of us”, that “the silver bullet isn’t more bucketloads of money; it’s a priceless quality … called personal and filial commitment to knowledge and learning”.

In my time as CEO at Challenger Institute, I have had a similar passion and indeed personal commitment to the power of learning in a community and in an organisation.

As a result a significant emphasis of my leadership has been on building a culture of learning within the organisation.

What this has meant is that there has been a commitment to building an organisation that encourages, funds and facilitates learning through a range of activities and opportunities, and recognises that learning needs to be integrated in the experience of work.

At Challenger we believe that learning is, as Poprzeczny suggests, as much an attitude as it is a practice, and that commitment to learning by staff needs to happen at a personal level.

The average age of staff at Challenger Institute, like in many TAFE Institutes around Australia is about 54. Age is no consideration when it comes to learning.

Added to this is the fact that across Australia and around the world some people are now working to 70 and beyond, and being encouraged to do so by governments that fear a diminishing active labour market as the population ages.

We have a number of lecturers in their seventies and have had students in their eighties. An employee at 54 may only be two thirds of the way through their working life, and employed in an environment of constant and rapid changes in learning technologies, in industry needs, and in global engagement.

We cannot afford to let the learning agenda for ourselves and our organisations slip – it needs to remain centre stage. Learning is, and has to remain, a lifelong process.

In Western Australia, the economy is strong and unemployment low, currently at just over four per cent. Western Australia has been riding the wave of Asia’s rapid growth, particularly China’s development, by providing many of the raw materials needed to build the infrastructure to power development. We are now, as is often said, riding on the back of the dragon rather than the sheep.

Challenger Institute has a large oil and gas process training centre, ACEPT, one of only three of its kind in the world.

The ACEPT centre provides training to many of the key global companies working in our region such as Shell Australia, BHP Billiton, Woodside, Apache Energy and Chevron to name a few.

We have needed to ensure our responsiveness, service and performance is peak to ensure the loyalty of these companies. After all, they can go anywhere in the world for their training.

We have had to be extremely flexible, agile and adaptable to respond to complex and demanding training environments. Being relevant, responsive and agile is a given, not an aspirational goal.

Challenger Institute recently won the 2012 Australian Large Training Provider of the Year Award.

The impact of the win on staff morale was enormous. As I moved around the campuses sharing the trophy with staff from all areas across the organisation, both teaching and non-teaching, I was very impressed to see how important this recognition was for them, with staff actually lining up to have their photos taken holding the trophy! It was both rewarding and inspiring to see.

It made me reflect on what we have done to achieve the pinnacle prize in the Australian training sector twice in the past seven years.

Much of what we have achieved over the years has been about prioritising continuous improvement, and committing to building knowledge and skills by individuals at the personal level that Poprzeczny refers to.

It also made me realise that we cannot rest on our laurels, that as an organisation, moving into a far more competitive environment, a continued priority for our own learning will be critical to ongoing success.

So fostering learning is central to building successful organisations that are accountable, ethical, robust and optimistic.

Optimism is important. When morale is high an organisation will be optimistic. When people are confident in their knowledge and abilities and are trusted to achieve and succeed, morale will be high. People can only remain confident in their abilities if they are given the opportunity to grow.

At a recent leadership presentation, I listened to a number of views on what makes an organisation effective in changing times.

Some discussed organisational agility, some strategic leadership, some authenticity as a leader, being tuned into the heads and hearts of people and recognising and rewarding performance.

No one mentioned the importance of building knowledge and a culture of learning to lead individuals and an organisation forward. This surprised me.

Currently, most TAFE systems are subject to budgetary pressure and in some cases significant cuts. It is no different in Western Australia. It is at such times that workforce development initiatives are dropped.

We contribute just over six per cent of our salaries budget to learning and development each year. This does not change. We maintain or build this even during times when budgets are cut, as at the present time.

Each year the number of staff involved in development opportunities grows. We are investing in mental capital, and in turn building knowledge and capability.

The role of the VET practitioner is becoming increasingly more complex and demanding. From the results of our recent use of a range of JMA Analytics Capability Assessment Tools or CATS, the data shows that within the large repertoire of skills and abilities needed by VET teachers, our staff are clear about their strengths.

More importantly, they are also honest and clear about their knowledge and skill gaps, and more importantly, are motivated to do something about it, and to build new knowledge, capabilities and awareness.

Kouzes and Posner in their 2010 leadership publication The Truth about Leadership state, “Learning is the master skill. When you fully engage in learning – when you throw yourself wholeheartedly into experimenting, reflecting, reading, getting coaching – you are going to experience the thrill of improvement and the taste of success.”

At Challenger, we have recently tasted success, but it is only a part of the journey, when it comes to learning, we believe more is more.

Liz Harris is the CEO of Challenger Institute of Technology, WA.

It’s time Australia quit its unhealthy obsession with high-ATAR cut offs and started ‘massifying’ education in the interests of true nation building. By Jan Thomas

Tertiary entrance scores are officially ‘on the nose’.

Rather than labelling some institutions as “second rate” for welcoming those who, through ATAR or circumstance, would traditionally end their studies in high school, should be applauding such universities for transforming the educationally disadvantaged into highly-skilled professionals.

In fact, folks fortunate to already be educated should stop looking down their noses at universities who believe in the transformative power of education, and be thankful to those who are providing a “fair go” for all through access to education.

Although, there seems to be something vaguely familiar about this argument, a broken record even, as one vice-chancellor after another beats their chest over the nation’s unhealthy obsession with student entry standards, rather than graduate exit standards.

A quick look at Australia’s tertiary sector and it appears disproportionately elitist – 20 per cent of the country’s 39 universities are sandstone, compared to just 0.3 per cent in America.

With more than 2700 accredited four-year colleges and universities in the States, just eight are Ivy League, yet in Australia, one out of five are restrictive, selective and exclusive.

Of course, sandstone universities do an excellent job in preparing the rock stars of research – the future Nobel Prize winners – but those superstars needn’t, these days, come from privileged homes whose family dynasties are enshrined at Ivy League Universities.

In fact, as Australia transitions from an elite education system to a mass education system in response to the Bradley targets, there is a changing of the guard with the tertiary sector needing to accommodate and educate a wider range of people from a variety of backgrounds, not just those whose mothers are doctors and fathers are lawyers.

And perhaps like a silver-spooned child who can’t get its way, it would seem many parts of society are ‘stomping their feet’, continuing to obsess over student entrance scores.

Maybe there’s some self-preservation and egos at play rather than national interest.

It would seem some educators are more concerned with the knowledge of power and the self-perpetuation of the social strata: training, preening, educating the elite to fill civic leadership roles at the exclusion of the remaining talent pool; than with creating a knowledge economy.

There is no doubt that our academics, like traditional students, are amongst some of the brightest and the best of their disciplines and professions; most educated during a time where universities were only for the top few elite.

So are we instinctively benchmarking students in a mass education system against the old guard, the product of an elite system, to protect and preserve our disciplinary and intellectual reputations?

Perhaps traditional academics subconsciously view students as potential successors and have a culture and expectation to deliver future academics, rather than preparing them for the diverse array of opportunities facing graduates?

With increasing attainment, clearly not all graduates will become civic and professional leaders.

Is there then a failure to acknowledge the sheer significance of knowledge for knowledge’s sake? That an increasingly educated citizenry is necessary for a mature democracy in a knowledge economy, which can only happen when sufficient Australians avail themselves of a higher education?

The truth is, high performing students do well no matter where they go, regardless of what support mechanisms are in place, simply because they are bright and self-motivated. And like birds of a feather, where the bright students go, inevitably more, even brighter students follow and the cycle continues.

High-scoring students make educators’ lives easy and they make them look good – giving the wider student body and the university a high GPA. It’s easy to teach outstanding students and it’s cheap.

But in today’s economy where employers demand not only bachelor degrees but postgraduate studies as well, universities must ‘massify’ education and provide powerful knowledge and social justice.

This is done by empowering the non-elite, minority groups and the disadvantaged – including refugees, prisoners, the disabled, as well as regional Australians and Indigenous communities.

Higher education access regardless of where you are born or whom you are born to, is critical for a knowledge economy – it drives national productivity; improves individuals’ life chances and transforms their families and communities.

Knowledge is the commodity in the knowledge economy and for those universities whose core business is to provide that to all Australians regardless of ATAR are in the business of nation building – these aren’t second-rate universities; and we shouldn’t allow discussion of ATAR distract us from the critical role they play in Australia.

If Australia is to achieve the Bradley targets, it needs to recruit students who have not been socialised into valuing education from a very young age, and typically regional and remote households have failed to do this.

And this is where regional universities, such as The University of Southern Queensland, step in to breach the educational divide.

The role of regional universities is to get to the gatekeepers and influencers within rural and remote communities and work with young people in educationally excluded parts of Australia – in regional schools, Aboriginal communities and with new migrants – and tell them it is possible for them to go to university – any university, regardless of their background.

And metropolitan Australia should be applauding this effort, instead of sneering at their regional cousins for doing so, which is done at substantial cost, and with limited funding.

Students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are often the ‘first in family’ to attempt a tertiary education and have often been out of school for many years, with various social issues, language barriers and even the negative attitudes of family members to overcome.

In order to help those students succeed, universities need to first raise student aspirations and confidence levels, give them encouragement and focus, as well as providing academic, social and pastoral support to get them up to standard, so that their intellectual “grunt” can be liberated.

The Bradley targets were benchmarked at participation rates in OECD countries, and can easily be met if students from all walks of life are embraced.

A preoccupation with ‘who’ people are at a certain time is not fruitful for society; it is not about who they are when they enter a campus, but who they become, and who they are when they leave.

It’s almost impossible to assess intellectual potential at an input point – a whole range of factors influence a student’s scores, not the least the school they went to, and the social circumstance of their family.

Output points however, are the result of the academic journey and, despite what some may claim: a Bachelor of Education at one university does indeed equate to a Bachelor of Education at another – professional bodies and TEQSA demand so.

In 2011, the Group of Eight commissioned a report entitled Selection and Participation in Higher Education: University Selection in Support of Student Success and Diversity of Participation.

The report found that strategies based “solely or predominantly on rank derived from secondary school achievement work against efforts to promote diversity of participation over time, unless additional steps are taken”.

A massified and diverse system of education is critical to meet the Bradley targets and to create a smart nation.

If Australia wants to lift university participation rates to 40 per cent, the old colonial-convict snob factor needs to go.

The cut off criteria at some universities is much higher than it needs to be for students to graduate at the right level for professional accreditation and employability.

It’s time to grow up Australia, and end your unhealthy obsession with ATAR cut-offs.

Jan Thomas is the vice-chancellor of University of Southern Queensland.

One of the risks of running an educational institution is keeping compliant with government regulations. Every six months, I hear of another college hit with a non-compliance transgression for failing to check their students’ visa status or some other compliance-related matter.

The regularity of these transgressions in a relatively large industry – there are about 2500 private colleges in Australia – shows the difficulty in staying up-to-date with government regulations.

While compliance can often be seen as a cumbersome and tedious matter, adopting a more scientific approach to compliance can bring very real benefits to educational providers, more than just the avoidance of being found “guilty” for their transgressions.

Compliance is continually changing, driven by an education sector that is increasingly globalised and the growing need among governments to form planned and systematic processes that ensure confidence in educational services.

Historically, compliance is built on three key principles. Firstly, compliance systems are used to protect the reputation of a country’s education systems.

Secondly, these systems are used to provide assurance that public and private funds are being spent appropriately.

Thirdly, it provides student assurance and protection.

The first principle is clear to any educational institution in Australia.

The potential impact to Australia’s reputation as a destination for learning is evidenced in a recent wave of negative publicity surrounding Indian students which caught on in India’s local media.

The effect was chillingly immediate, and no doubt contributed to a 24 per cent drop in enrolments by Indian students in January to June last year.

The second principle demonstrates probity and financial accountability, which are crucial in an industry that is affected by exchange rates and international schooling trends. For example, at least 39 colleges closed down in 2009 in Australia as the global financial crisis took hold. More recently, local educational institutions are under increasing pressure due to the resiliently high dollar, which makes Australia less attractive to international students.

The third principle follows on from the second, as students need to be confident that the education they have paid for is of the type and the standard they were promised.

Consequently, as Australia moves towards a more systematised and reliable approach to compliance, educational institutions are forced to work within a framework that is much more data-driven and carries more legal ramifications.

 Moreover, in several countries such as Singapore, government officials have passed legislation to govern compliance for educational institutions and handed responsibility for enforcement to quality assurance agencies.

These agencies have increasing regulatory powers to impose quality controls, conduct inspections of various sorts, and monitor compliance through regular audits.

More worryingly, the legislation is often reinforced with penalties for non-compliance such as enforced closure, fines or even criminal charges.

The punishment for non-compliance can extend beyond the terms of the legislation and thus, the increasing relationship between compliance and government funding models in Australia and internationally creates a strong incentive to play by the rules.

Naturally, educational providers faced with an increasingly punitive environment for non-compliance can become more concerned with their own compliance requirements and “live in fear” of the regulatory authority.

Staying compliant is even harder in countries like Australia where a single education provider may be answerable to several quality assurance agencies and the burden of meeting multiple requirements and requests can be an extraordinary administrative overhead.

The problems multiply when compliance requirements are poorly articulated by legislation, which can lead to confusion and misinterpretation among education providers and auditors.

Compliance allows organisations to locate and manage issues with its operations, while at the same time adopting accepted corporate, operational and regulatory governance standards. Ensuring that a streamlined process is adhered to in teaching and learning leads to more accurate reporting of student records.

Compliance which has little or no integration with a college’s operations has no opportunity to drive positive change.

But at their core, compliance frameworks provide the tools to help educational institutions create a quality approach to education and training.

Smart education providers are leveraging compliance frameworks to continuously improve management processes and systems, and data gathered for compliance can also be used for more effective decision-making.

In short, the best practice is to align the standards in a compliance framework with an organisation’s daily teaching, learning and business procedures.

Approached in the right way, compliance should provide the framework to run an organisation more efficiently and effectively.

Whether the framework is maintained on a spreadsheet or within a specialist student management system, the credibility of an organisation’s compliance data will be in question if it cannot be verified.

The up-front planning for this framework is very important in order to be efficient and effective with compliance and find the balance between the benefits associated with greater control versus inevitable administrative costs.

This framework also provides an opportunity for educational institutions to take advantage of data gathered that goes beyond the information required for verification by regulatory bodies.

By identifying such opportunities, a standard compliance framework can in fact be turned into a powerful enterprise management tool.

Compliance managers can gain valuable insights by analysing such data and drive the creation of reporting structures that not only ensure compliance but also further the institution’s operational capacity.

However, dealing with large amounts of data can be a daunting task when tackled manually.

Aside from being costly, this manual method is also very time-consuming, as the compliance manager has to work through disparate systems or spread sheets for recording data. It might also involve consolidating and reconciling said systems to eliminate potential duplication.

Aside from the consumption of time, when manual spread sheet processes are used for compliance, it is typical for an organisation to discover that it has as much as a 15 per cent error rate – often such items may never be discovered in a compliance audit, but errors do exist.

A specialist school management solution makes reviewing and consolidating data simple. Such solutions make it easy to configure bespoke or required reports for many of the elements that need to be complied with.

By implementing formal policies and procedures, along with a well thought through compliance framework and a professionally supported student management solution, institutions can more easily control, manage and support the compliance “ghosts” which haunt many education providers and bring a more rational, scientific approach to compliance.

Marcel Creed is the senior executive of Sky Software.

Despite the uncertainty of the times and changes to government funding, the planned joint venture of Monash University and the University of Ballarat will go ahead.

Monash vice-chancellor Ed Byrne said, “The impact of the government's announcement is not yet fully known in terms of funding arrangements for the new regionally-focused university, and that will be something for us, together with the University of Ballarat to manage. However, our plan to proceed with the proposition remains unchanged.”

The universities decided to form an expanded, regionally focused university after the suggestion of a joint effort of improving the delivery of regional higher education.

“In February, the two universities announced that they would undertake extensive consultation and due diligence process to determine the viability of this proposal,” said UB chancellor Dr Paul Hemming.

“It was well-known that Monash University had been looking at ways to enable the Gippsland campus to better meet the needs of its communities, including improving university participation rates regionally,” said Hemming.

He said they will now seek the necessary formal approvals from the Victorian and commonwealth governments and move to detailed implementation planning and activity.

Consent will also be required from the federal government and from the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA). 

Discussions are continuing with the NTEU and staff regarding the detail behind the proposed staffing arrangements. However, Gippsland staff can be assured that all eligible staff will be offered employment by the new university on terms and conditions no less favourable than they currently enjoy.

Victorian minister for higher education and skills, Peter Hall, has offered his in-principle support. He said the proposition would benefit students across the state, giving them access to a wider range of courses and to support services that are tailored to the needs of regional students.

UB vice-chancellor professor David Battersby said “This initiative would bring together the skills and expertise developed in Gippsland, Ballarat and the Western regions of Victoria to further benefit these and other regional communities.

It would support the economic development of regional Victoria by ensuring a thriving, broad-based, regional university that facilitates learning through education and research, and which provides the foundation for regional growth and competitiveness, he added.

“This new arrangement, once approved, will offer more students the opportunity to undertake their studies locally,” Battersby said.

“It holds great potential to develop new ways of delivering courses that better suit regional communities including better and closer connections with other regional education providers especially TAFE Institutes,” he said.

Monash vice-chancellor professor Ed Byrne said that with the councils’ decision to proceed, they can focus on seeking government actions that include the Victorian parliament’s approval of a new name for the university.

“Whilst the proposition cannot be implemented until these approvals are received, we can make preparations while they are being sought. The next seven months are going to be very busy for everyone involved,” Byrne said.

Pro vice-chancellor professor Robin Pollard extended his appreciation to all involved in the consultation process.

“Since late February, we sought input and engagement with all those who will be affected by this development. While some concerns and disagreement were expressed, we also received support from organisations and individuals who see the benefits of the changes proposed,” Pollard said.

“It was apparent that different community groups care deeply about the campus, while at the same time confronting the region’s low participation in university education. The campus intends to maintain the healthy dialogue."

He said the next few months will see Monash working closely with UB to ensure a smooth transition, with minimal disruption to current teaching and research.

Currently enrolled students will remain Monash students, and will be able to complete their studies at the Gippsland campus, graduating with a Monash degree.

The University of South Australia is staging one of the biggest conversations about its future this month. The only difference is that conversation will take place online.

On May 29-30, the university will launch a “unijam”, bringing together thousands of participants – students, alumni and staff – to generate ideas for the future planning of the university.

 “It is the people on the ground – the students, the research fellows, the professional staff, the business leaders who have practical perspectives about what works well and where things can improve,” University of South Australia vice-chancellor, David Lloyd, said.

Over two days, participants can provide insight through online discussion forums and polls which will be supported by an IBM platform.

Lloyd said this is the first time a university has ever attempted an IBM Jam to boost engagement and innovation with students who will have the opportunity to personally chat with senior leaders and international strategists. 

“It is just one example of how we can use technology innovatively to build engaged communities and new ideas that make sense in their community context,” Lloyd said.

The online discussions will be organised in themes allowing participants to log into the areas most important to them.

At the end of the unijam the ideas, polls and conversations will be analysed and fed into the plans for UniSA’s future development.

“We hope to have some insightful ideas that may change the way we approach our services right now or indeed how we plan our “business” in the next five years,” Lloyd said.

So far almost 900 students, staff and alumni have registered for the unijam in the first few hours, with the initiative also attracting the support of South Australia’s premier Jay Weatherill. “Since becoming premier, I’ve sought new and innovative ways of engaging people in decision making that affects them – that’s why I wanted to be involved in unijam,” Weatherill said.

Weatherill said he is excited to be involved in an initiative that will involve the entire university community in planning for its future. 

Dozens of IT jobs will go at Monash University after it announced workers will be offered voluntary redundancies.

The university alerted staff in its eSolutions division of the planned redundancies, and have identified at least 80 of these workers as eligible to express interest.

A spokeswoman for Monash University said the offer has been made to reduce operating costs in line with the university’s budget.

To encourage workers to take redundancy, Monash has added a further $10,000 to the value of the voluntary redundancy package.

The calls for voluntary redundancies have come off the back of the announcement that federal cuts will be made to the tertiary sector.

But the spokeswoman for Monash said: “The offer has been made solely as a result of planned cost savings as a result of centralisation of services, not as a consequence of the recent announcement regarding funding cuts by the federal government.”

The tertiary education union said the job cuts are the second of three tranches of cuts to eSolutions and warn that there are more cuts to come.

The National Tertiary Education Union’s industrial organiser at Monash, Stan Rosenthal, said the first round of job cuts were announced late last year, and that the union was told that two more rounds would occur. “So there is a third round on the way, with about 500 staff in that part of eSolutions not yet affected.”

He said the cuts to solutions are unlikely to be limited to those who take redundancies, as Monash’s redundancy packages will only be available to full-term staff.

Rosenthal said those who are not “continuing” (permanent) employees will not be offered packages and that their contracts will not be renewed.  

He said the union was advised by Monash that if the initial response from workers was “insufficient”, selected individuals would be encouraged to reconsider their reluctance to take a redundancy package.

The spokeswoman for Monash confirmed that the university will reassess the need for additional job reduction in around two months time, once the level of interest in the offer has been properly measured.

The union also claims Monash failed to properly notify the union of the planned redundancies and has lodged a formal dispute notification which instructs Monash to freeze the processing of expression of interest by staff.

Rosenthal said the union was given an informal “heads up” on April 22 – the day prior to the announcement, adding that the union was not approached in a way that conforms to the enterprise agreement.

He said the university has agreed to not process expressions of interest, adding “if they breach that provision we will go straight to Fair Work Commission”.