National training system disconnected

Are there alternatives to training packages for remote indigenous communities? Many VET leaders are preoccupied with two looming challenges: preparing for contestable funding and anticipating the implications for VET from the Bradley review of higher education. For Aaron Devine, Charles Darwin University’s director of VET, these challenges are far less complex than managing what he calls “the disconnect” between indigenous communities and the national training system. Devine spoke about this challenge in an interview after he was presented with the AUSTAFE award for educational leadership at the recent AUSTAFE conference in Adelaide. “The national training system is tailored towards work and the achievement of mainstream enterprises,” says Devine. “Many remote indigenous communities have evolving, hybrid economies, but are a long way from having strong, sustainable private enterprises or economic bases to operate in. So having an industry-focused training system is just really not what they need. “If you don’t have large-scale employment in an indigenous community, how do you support clients through an industry training package that ultimately is based around employment-related education? I just don’t think that training packages are fitting the needs of these communities.” Devine points to the fact that large numbers of these communities may never develop significant employment opportunities. “If you don’t have full employment, or if the most you can hope for in the medium term is 50 per cent employment, then we need to look at some other ways of engaging people in learning that’s appropriate to them, their community needs and also builds their community capacity. “Where you’ve got indigenous people in their community with a job, the training system works, as well as it does anywhere else. But the reality is we’re stretching and squeezing a training system to meet people who don’t have employment, who don’t have the literacy and numeracy skills, and we’ve got to find something else for them.” He notes that a reason given for the federal government intervention in the Northern Territory was to engage indigenous people in mainstream Australian education, “yet only 12 per cent of those indigenous adults referred to us for basic language and literacy training through the language, literacy and lumeracy program [as part of the intervention programs] have got any outcome at all from the training. It’s just a disaster.” Community development model Devine says a starting point would be to stop using training packages in indigenous communities and to focus instead on community development activities. For him, a community development approach starts with recognising that many communities focus on their cultural activities. “So how do we engage these communities in their cultural activities and on their needs? How do we engage them on the sort of enterprises that they might want to create? These are the sort of community development models the policymakers need to think about.” Devine believes that some elements of a community development approach are provided by a recent NCVER study led by former Fulbright scholar Metta Young, which identifies factors needed for training programs to work, including community ownership and working in partnership with the local community. He remains a supporter of contestability in VET, but sees some dangers for indigenous communities. “A contestable VET market will bring more good than bad. However, government needs to be cognisant of the fact that a highly agile, deregulated, contestable training system by its nature may have consequences for equity and for the more marginalised. “We must not lose sight of the fact that remote indigenous people are a critical and equal customer of our system, and must have opportunities in order to improve themselves and their community.” Devine believes that while governments have considerable policy focus and are providing significant funding for indigenous community training, the training system is too rigid. “A one size fits all model out of Canberra is not going to fit as well in remote Australia as it does perhaps in Melbourne and Sydney,” he says. “Governments are quite open to alternative ways, but the targets and the reporting arrangements for government-funded projects are always short-term. You are not going to assist with projects that have funding commitments of months to a year.” “Training issues for remote indigenous communities are not going to be easily solved and no one model’s going to fix them,” says Devine. “But we know the model that we’re putting all our resources into, through the national training system, certainly is one that is not working.” Contact Aaron.Devine@cdu.edu.au and see www.ncver.edu.au/publications/1911.html Dr John Mitchell is a VET strategist. Contact johnm@jma.com.au and see www.jma.com.au