Training packages up for review

The future of training packages is up for discussion during a month of national consultations starting in Adelaide this week. The ‘VET Training Products for the 21st Century’ project – a comprehensive review of national VET policy, jointly run by the National Quality Council (NQC) and COAG’s skills development sub-group – includes public workshops in every capital, Albury, Alice Springs, Bendigo, Bunbury, Coffs Harbour, Karratha, Port Augusta and Townsville. The project also includes targeted consultations and a call for public submissions. Topics on the table include credit systems, the definition of competence, types of qualifications and the structure of national training packages. A detailed consultation paper and literature review have been developed to get tongues moving. “What we’re really looking at is the product architecture of the VET system,” said Megan Lilly, Australian Industry Group’s associate director of education and training, who chairs the steering committee overseeing the project. “That architecture has been developed over a substantial period. We’ve had moments where we’ve looked at it more intensively, particularly the high-level review of training packages. What we’re doing now is having another look at it so we can make the necessary reforms to position it for the immediate and medium-term future. So we can get some really good products in the VET sector that will work for everybody – regardless of whether we’re in an economic boom or a downturn.” Training packages have recently come in for some stick, notably from an OECD benchmarking team (CR, 18.11.08) and the deputy head of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (CR, 20.01.09). But the current project had its genesis two years ago, when the NQC started scoping out a new generation of flexible training packages and a revised competency approach which emphasised employability and cognitive attributes alongside technical skills. The project was established last year, after the NQC’s work converged with the COAG productivity agenda. Lilly said she didn’t think it would lead to wholesale restructure of Australia’s industry-led VET system, which she said was internationally recognised and had been improved by previous reforms. “I wouldn’t see that it will be out with the old and in with the new, because we have some very good sound components of the policy architecture. But we need to do further work. From a policy perspective we should always be able to review, reform and refresh what we do, and what’s important,” Lilly said. The Bradley review provided a timely opportunity to look at credit transfer systems, but that her project would examine them purely from a VET training package perspective. “We need to look carefully at what the purpose of a credit system would be, what we’re trying to achieve from it, and what would flow from it – without making too many assumptions beyond that,” she said. She said the committee would also take on board DEEWR deputy secretary Jim Davidson’s criticisms that training packages don’t facilitate the teaching of creativity. “We need to make sure we don’t come up with a one-size-fits-all solution, because they’re essentially fairly blunt instruments. We want to come up with reforms that more broadly encompass the needs of a greater range of people.” Lilly said feedback from the consultations and submissions, along with the results of research being undertaken by industry and skills councils, would feed into recommendations to be submitted this financial year to the NQC and the COAG sub-group. Go to nqc.tvetaustralia.com.au