Replacing training packages

Imagine the benefits if training packages were simplified. The recent OECD report on VET in Australia bluntly called for the replacement of training packages by much briefer statements of skill standards. It was alarming news for those who had hoped that training packages were no longer controversial. There is no doubt that if training packages were replaced, then substantial changes would be needed to all learning materials, delivery approaches, assessment strategies, marketing materials, administrative processes and staff development programs. To focus on the impact is a short-sighted response that overlooks the benefits that could ensue for student learning and skill development. Policy decisions about the future of training packages need to move beyond the identification of inconvenient ramifications and concentrate on the positives, says Anne Jones, pro vice-chancellor (vocational education) at Victoria University. “I’m enthusiastically welcoming the OECD recommendation to replace training packages with simpler skill standards. There are many good reasons for doing this.” The first is that a more flexible, localised approach to qualifications based on skill standards would be easier to work with than the silos created by different training packages. “At VU we’re increasingly cobbling together delivery plans for learners based on units from two or more qualifications or different training package”. She gives the example of a program VU is currently conducting in the workplace for a large water company which requires the learners to enrol successively in three different qualifications from two training packages. “That’s clumsy from the learner’s perspective in that the program lacks coherence and administrative simplicity. The reason we do that is that the government funding and the delivery measures are linked to qualifications. “If we had the freedom to create our own qualifications based on simplified skill standards, we would be able to produce a much more coherent and user-focused or user-centred product for businesses and industries.” One of the issues that VU is addressing is the incorporation of VET units into associate degrees, inspired by the structure of foundation degrees in the UK. This structure has allowed UK colleges to shift towards curriculum models that enable them to provide that richer learning experience, which is necessary to get credit with higher education. “The foundation degrees have basically replaced the higher end of the former VET qualifications in the UK. They’ve been enormously successful because they’re popular with learners and with employers,” says Jones But when it came to trying to implement curriculum at VU that looked like British foundation degrees, “there were so many barriers that we haven’t actually done it in the way we would have liked to have done”. “Training package qualifications are often aimed at a sub-group in an industry and at the skills required here and now. The packaging rules can be complex and restrictive.” Ending the dissonance She is especially interested in what the changes proposed by the OECD could mean “for improving movement between sectors, for dissolving the boundaries within the tertiary sector, for ending the dissonance between curriculum in higher education and curriculum in the VET system”. “I’m in general agreement with working towards seamlessness. We’ve been foolish in Australia to create VET curriculum which is so different from higher education curriculum. “The VET system used to include a lot more specified knowledge-based learning in its qualifications. With the introduction of training packages, we took all of that curriculum out, deciding that the visible performance was much more important than the underpinning knowledge. There’s a really strong argument that we really did move towards models where unthinking performance was valued.” Jones suggests that initially changes could be restricted to the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) levels 5 to 7. “As in the UK, we could retain the focus on national qualifications at lower AQF levels. It should be possible to develop funding models that acknowledge localised design as well as achievement of national standards.” In the long term, Jones argues the current training packages are untenable because “the inertia in the design and review process means that they always lag behind innovation in skills development. For example, how do we skill learners for green technologies that haven’t yet been invented?” “We’re not acknowledging that a lot of the work that young people are going to be doing in their future lives is unknown. We should be focusing a lot more on learning that prepares people for future learning rather than learning that just delivers skills that can be immediately put into practice in the workplace.” Contact AnneT.Jones@vu.edu.au and see www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/11/41631383.pdf Dr John Mitchell is a VET strategist. Contact johnm@jma.com.au and see www.jma.com.au