Recession hits apprenticeship starts boom times, people often leave their training before completion to take up well-paid jobs. The NCVER has also released preliminary 2008 figures on students and courses, showing a 2 per cent increase in VET students over ...

Is Australia condemned to an endless cycle of high unemployment alternating with periods of rapid economic growth and skill shortages? Or is there a better way, in which learning and labour flows proceed in tandem? general, reflective learning in VET, ...

TAFE institutes need to participate constructively in debates about VET reform – rather than acting as “blockers” – and TAFE boards need to give their CEOs the “moral authority” to engage in that public policy debate, according to Swinburne University ...

What strategies can new entrants use to compete with universities and TAFE, asks John Mitchell.>Most new training organisations or higher education providers identify and then pursue boutique student markets. Typically, they target lucrative niche VET markets in a particular field ...

Greening Australia’s apprentices for Indian students wanting to study abroad. Newly released AEI statistics show a 31 per cent annual increase for the quarter to end March in Indian students commencing in Australian education, including a 14 per cent jump ...

The director’s fees paid to TAFE board members need to be raised substantially, according to shareholder activist Stephen Mayne.

If everyone buys a simulacrum of the education revolution, why should government bother to fund the real thing? By Simon Marginson. The dust has settled and the cheering has stopped. Once again Canberra has packaged a tertiary education budget with ...

The most likely explanation for the exclusion of private providers and VET from the government’s demand driven system is more fiscal than philosophical, writes Andrew Norton. The 12 May budget confirmed that, contrary to the Bradley report’s recommendation, the government ...

The federal government’s Productivity Places Program (PPP) is geared towards funding an astronomical 711,000 training places over the next four years. But if you’ve been thinking this means 711,000 people, you’re sadly mistaken. According to the ‘National Partnership Agreement on ...

The government’s budget response stands universities in good stead to adapt to a changing world, says Peter Coaldrake. Human ingenuity has enabled us to populate almost every possible part of the globe. It has delivered unprecedented growth in prosperity, lifespan ...