Pam Christie recently took up one of the most senior positions in TAFE nationally, as deputy director-general, TAFE and community education, in the NSW Department of Education and Training. She spoke candidly to John Mitchell about whether TAFE was capabl ...
More »Productivity possibilities
Teachers aren’t the only source of future efficiencies in VET, says John Mitchell. The recently announced review of the VET workforce by the Productivity Commission will be a critical research project with its focus on trainers and assessors. However, productivity ...
More »Getting apprentices over the hump: loans, tax credits?
Australia needs to think laterally, and explore what’s happening overseas, to find new ways of encouraging people to sign up for apprenticeships – and then stick with them. Income-contingent loans, tax rebates, tax credits, industry levies and even early access ...
More »Education workforces to come under microscope
The Productivity Commission will look at workforce issue in all education sectors from early childhood to VET. But what about higher education? Julie Hare reports. The vocational education and training sector will be the first cab off the rank in ...
More »As good as it gets
For all their ability to earn much more over the course of their working lives, new research shows university graduates are no happier than there young people who had undertaken an apprenticeship or trade, or even early school leavers. Darragh ...
More »Explicit messages from government
Are governments sending mixed messages to public providers, asks John Mitchell. Beginning about 18 months ago, when major reforms to VET were announced in Victoria, there were complaints among public providers that governments were sending them vague or mixed messages. ...
More »Victorian VET eligibility criteria “need tweaking”
The Victorian TAFE Association has called for a softening of the state government’s punitive eligibility criteria which reserve government-funded VET places for people undertaking progressively higher level qualifications.uffering. “For example, many people wantingto become librarians have already done a base ...
More »High jumps or hurdles
Ros Brennan Kemmis on raising the bar on VET teacher qualifications. The quality and success of students are intrinsically tied to the skills and abilities of the teachers and trainers. The prodigious body of research literature on the correlation between ...
More »High jumps or hurdles
The quality and success of students are intrinsically tied to the skills and abilities of the teachers and trainers. The prodigious body of research literature on the correlation between teacher qualifications and quality outcomes for students seems to have been ...
More »Top providers suffer
Should outstanding providers of international education pay for the poor practices of others, asks John Mitchell. There is an unfortunate downside to the avalanche of publicity over the past six months about a minority of private providers offering international students ...
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