Nine tenths of the way there

Education minister Julia Gillard’s vision for “cohesive” post-school education, outlined at this month’s Big Skills conference, goes most of the way towards realising the integrated tertiary education system recommended by Denise Bradley. Gillard said she’d work with the states and territories to consolidate VET regulatory arrangements and eliminate “the administrative clutter strewn across the VET landscape”. Her goal is a national VET system regulated by a small number of agencies – ideally one. “It is important that this work progresses alongside the establishment of the proposed higher education regulator,” she told the conference. But her blueprint doesn’t cross the final bridge recommended by Bradley: putting higher education and VET under the same regulator. Gillard is nine tenths of the way there. She wants both sectors regulated nationally. She said she’d extend Skills Australia’s responsibilities to advising about higher education as well as VET, and that she’d commission the Australian Qualifications Framework Council to improve connectivity between the sectors. She reiterated that the Education Investment Fund is open to VET providers as well as universities. And she confirmed that a single tertiary education sector ministerial council would be established, as flagged last November by MCVTE. Gillard spelt out a compelling rationale for bringing the two sectors together. “Technological change is narrowing the gap between pure knowledge – traditionally the preserve of universities – and vocational skills,” she told the conference. “Advances in environmental science are creating new green-collar industries where knowledge of science and practical skills are equally important. It’s the same in biotechnology, where our laboratory technicians need a sophisticated understanding of the building blocks of human life. Early childhood education and aged care are pushing VET into new professional and para-professional directions that require an understanding of physiology and psychology.” And she painted a glowing picture of VET’s place in the world. “In Australia, you don’t need a university degree to consider yourself successful. That’s one of our greatest achievements – and VET did it. “Two great systems of education, equal in value, driven by separate missions but with a common purpose. Two systems, one shared vision: a stronger and fairer Australia.” Gillard has “grasped the nettle”, said Professor David Battersby, vice-chancellor of the dual-sector University of Ballarat. “She indicated the Rudd Government would insert VET into the centre of the emerging tertiary educational landscape by rethinking whether the nation needs separate systems and institutions to create better connected learning. She has gone well beyond the Bradley Review recommendations.” So why balk at Bradley’s final hurdle, the combined regulator? “I suspect it might come in due course,” Battersby told Campus Review. “A lot of people have picked up on her use of the term seamlessness. One could surmise they have one regulatory authority in mind. They probably want to take an incremental approach rather than doing it too quickly.” Battersby said there were two reasons for caution. “My impression is they’re still thinking through whether they will manoeuvre through a ministerial council, or use COAG arrangements to prosecute their policy. And it’s a balancing act. The states are the owners of the public infrastructure. It would be slightly antagonistic if on one hand you’re saying states have the bulk of the responsibility, but on the other hand you put in place a national regulatory authority.” Conor King, principal consultant with PhillipsKPA, said the states were likely to be open to discussion on higher education. “VET is more sensitive. At this stage, the discussion should focus on getting agreement about the need for a coherent national approach. Gillard’s got a lot of money, clout and a logical argument behind her, but I think she’s looking to see how the debate in both sectors pans out before deciding whether one body could or should run it.” There are logistical questions around a single regulator, King added. “You could centralise a higher education body with some outlying people. A VET regulator would need a large presence in most state capitals, and even beyond that. Scale is another issue. The higher education body would have 40 large institutions to worry about and a couple of hundred smaller ones. The VET body would have something like 100 large institutions and a couple of thousand smaller ones. “One argument is, rather than a higher education versus VET split, you could have a big versus small split. The bigger organisations – universities, TAFEs and the larger private bodies – are pretty much on track. You’d need to keep an eye on them and put them through hoops every now and then. But that’s quite a different approach to keeping a closer eye – and maybe a helping hand – on a multitude of smaller providers across both sectors.” Erica Smith, education professor and dean of graduate studies at Ballarat, said Gillard had done the right thing. Smith said a single regulatory body for both sectors would be unfeasible and pointless. “To have them brought under the same umbrella is great, but you can’t put them in the same bag,” she said. “If you start to pretend they’re the same, you get into difficulties. Universities create their own curriculum; VETs don’t. The funding arrangements are different. The traditions are different. There has to be a commonality of understanding so that things can be paralleled. But with different bodies for each, the expertise of the people who sit on the panels will be deep. “I was really pleased to hear that there would be regulators for both sectors. Because, obviously, the university sector is under-regulated.”