Education and industry face hard facts at skills symposium

VET and universities are not getting pathways right but both face difficulty in trying to get industry to move away from the ‘here and now’. The relationship between the VET sector and universities is not working and needs a fundamental re-think, a Service Skills Australia symposium in Sydney has been told. Pam Christie who leads TAFE NSW higher education strategy told industry and education leaders that there was not the flow of students from TAFE to universities that people thought there was. “We need to improve it,” Christie said. What had been done traditionally was endless mapping of TAFE curriculum to get articulation right. TAFE NSW now had over 500 articulation agreements with individual universities. “This was a waste of time and effort compared to the actual flow of students that have been granted entry to university on the basis of that credit,” she said. “It is not working. What we believe is we have to fundamentally re-think the relationships between VET and universities.” Christie was addressing questions raised during an all-day meeting of industry representatives and higher education and VET leaders arranged by Service Skills Australia in a bid to promote understanding and better connections between the education and industry sectors. In the course of the symposium a number of hurdles to that understanding had been identified and chief among them was traditional VET/ university stereotypes and future avenues for advice from industry. A panel discussion was chaired by education consultant, Professor Rod McDonald, who said there was a need to overcome stereotypes to avoid ending up with some “horrible (dual sector) amalgam.” Both Christie and Professor Peter Booth, senior deputy vice-chancellor at UTS agreed a strong element of snobbery still existed within universities about taking students from the VET sector. Booth said the relationship was complex. UTS and the Australian Technology Network (ATN) of universities had strong relationships and there was a “strong flow of students”, but in some universities there was an elitist view of lower level qualifications and questions about how much advanced standing those students should have. “Within our own academic staff you will find that range of views, some who understand, some who accommodate and some who are reasonably negative and look down at lower level qualifications”, he said. However generally there was a positive view and there was an extremely large flow of students. However, Christie disagreed that the current student flow was strong. She said that in the post-Bradley environment there was an eagerness for universities to engage more in the VET sector. “We have to take that opportunity and challenge the stereotypes and assumptions and start partnerships that are winning for both,” she said. At the moment some universities were doing this better than others, Charles Sturt University in west NSW for example had high enrolments from VET while others had very low enrolments. Anthony Bohm, CEO of distance learning providers, Cengage, said he thought there was a strategic misalignment when you tried to deal with universities as VET providers. “As a VET provider, a private one, we have a very simple agenda, skills’ agenda you live and die by the skills training you provide and the employment that it provides for graduates.” He said universities had a more diversified mission “when their commercial argument fails it becomes a community service.” Bohm said this strategic misalignment created a tension. “If you look at the skills shortages in Australia I do not think the solution is higher education.” He said he was not necessarily an advocate of an integrated sector because he thought the requirements of the workforce were more at the skills level. Robin Shreeve, CEO of Skills Australia said the boundaries were blurring. He believed the VET sector needed to look at the quality of its products and accessibility to them. The issue of industry input into design of courses and training packages was also discussed. Christie said working with industry was fundamental to TAFE. She thought the issue was about being customer responsive across the VET sector. TAFE was currently measuring the value added from industry input. She also mentioned that TAFE NSW has developed a program for a dual sector degree in accountancy which involved TAFEs, universities and industry, through the CPA. Booth said at university level you had to have staff who wanted to engage and were open to industry views. “You have to have a culture of listening; universities generally are not good at listening. The ATNs do but we also debate what industry wants and whether it is appropriate. Often the advice we get from industry is not future oriented, it is about the here and now, and frankly if we did that, it would be a great disservice to our graduates.” He said getting industry to push the future agenda is one of the most difficult issues to be tackled.