A surge of reports on the future of Australia’s VET sector were published in the lead-up to the federal election, many tabled by Craig Fowler in a recent article published in Campus Review. Labor’s Tanya Plibersek established the terms of ...

Australia should scrap the current census approach of NAPLAN and replace it with sample testing of students, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has been told. In its submission to COAG’s review of NAPLAN, the Gonski Institute for Education at ...

Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham has named four of six members of an expert panel charged with reviewing Australia’s Qualifications Framework (AQF). The panel was set up to examine changes in the nature of work and developments in ...

TAFE Directors Australia (TDA) has taken a bold step by launching a national charter for TAFEs as the basis for a framework for the National Partnership Agreement on Skills. The purpose of the charter is to form a framework under ...

Opposition is increasing in Federal Parliament to the government’s reforms to vocational education and training. Louis White reports. The Coalition and the Greens are unimpressed with the Gillard government’s reform agenda to develop a more skilled workforce through the use ...

Tertiary education minister Senator Chris Evans has tried to provide reassurance amid speculation that the federal government’s commitment to the public provision of skills training is faltering. In an interview with Campus Review, Evans said he was concerned that vocational ...

Proposed changes to vocational education funding could lock some potential students out of further education, says a national union for public educators. The Australian Education Union has written to Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Senator Chris Evans, along with the ...

There are dangers in giving public funds to providers who lack experienced teachers, writes John Mitchell. COAG has signed the agreement to open up the nationwide market for VET funding. When Victoria started down this path about three years ago, ...

It was fortuitous that while COAG was meeting to sign off on a new tranche of reforms for the tertiary sector, the Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association conference in Canberra was addressing issues around the value and voice ...

The entry of “training entitlement” now agreed by COAG is the new wild card for Australia’s VET reform. The Commonwealth proceeded with its $1.75 billion proposal for entitlement, wrapped in the promise to extend income contingent loans. Yet it pushed ...