Industry calls training shots in Queensland

Much like the new national arrangements, Queensland is encouraging industry to take the lead in meeting skills shortages. The Queensland government has pledged $50 million to entice industry to take the lead in addressing critical skills shortages in the state. Skills Queensland — a statutory body established by the state government last December — is offering grants up of to $2 million for industry to train workers through registered training organisations. Chief executive Rod Camm told Campus Review the $50 million had been redirected from former contestable monies into the new fund. The government will reinvest up to $50 million annually in subsequent years. Camm said the object was to empower emerging and fast-growing industries to identify their skills and jobs shortages and drive the training required to address them. This can been seen in the fact that the new Skills Queensland commission reports to an industry-based board, on which Department of Education and Training director-general Julie Grantham will represent the VET sector. “A lot of our focus at the moment is on how do we get the skills agenda right in the industries that are growing, particularly the resources sector?” Camm said. “Because if we don’t get them right, it will have an impact elsewhere in the economy.” In principle, the new fund’s intention is not unlike that of the $558 million National Workforce Development Fund (NWDF), announced in last month’s federal budget. Under the NWDF, industry is being given the power to call the shots in an effort to align national training with emerging skills needs in fast-growing sectors. (See related story: Budget submits to industry demand) Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Chris Evans started to explain the federal government’s vision for the NWDF and broader skills reforms late last week. “Skills Australia has attempted to put in context the skills challenge we face during the next 10 to 15 years,” Evans said in a speech delivered to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “It projects 4.6 million additional qualifications will be required over the next 15 years due to employment growth. We will need an additional 2.4 million people in the workforce with qualifications at certificate III and higher by 2015. This will increase to 5.2 million by 2025 to meet industry demand.” Evans reiterated that government was “placing industry at the heart of the training effort to deliver skilled workers” and went on to say reforming the VET sector was essential to make it “better matched to future jobs growth”. “We must not be stymied by a lack of human capital. We must meet the challenge of providing a skilled workforce to allow industry to maximise the benefits of the next [mining] boom.” Camm said although the existence of Skills Queensland and the federal program had the potential to confuse the market place, the Queensland initiative would not duplicate the broader effort. “The advantage of doing it from a state perspective is that through our industry relations and networks that have been set up, we’re just much closer to industry and much closer to regional labour markets,” he said. “We will certainly be encouraging investment in skills through our fund, but we want to be complementary with the national arrangements as they become clearer. So we would be almost helping industry understand what can be applied for in terms of the guidelines nationally, and then we can fill the gaps.” Industries that use the new strategic investment fund are expected to contribute their own funding. In fact, increasing non-government investment in the VET sector is one of the stated objectives of the Skills Queensland commission. “We’ll take a fairly flexible view. We also want to use the fund to maximise workforce participation,” Camm said. “If it’s a pre-employment program, for example, and it focuses on a particular cohort that’s disadvantaged in the labour market — but because it’s industry driven, they’re guaranteeing employment outcomes — obviously government funds would be invested at a higher level. If it’s up-skilling existing employees, we’d expect a 50-50.” Deb Daly, the Queensland Department of Education and Training's deputy director-general of training and tertiary education, told CR skills priorities had driven VET funding programs in Queensland for almost a decade. “Providers within the state are quite used to shaping their delivery proposals around those priorities,” Daly said. “Students will benefit because priority funding will go to skills shortage areas in the first instance. This means that there are likely to be job outcomes for them on completion of their training.”