The Productivity Places Program has a few staunch friends. It’s well-liked in private training circles, where it’s been a big help getting colleges through the financial crisis. And Julia Gillard’s office has issued regular media releases extolling the program’s latest ...

Why are secondary school students so positive about VET, asks John Mitchell. Some experienced practitioners have long held the view that VET programs in schools are token gestures delivered by bored geography teachers who have no knowledge of the world ...

Universities hold the upper hand when determining eligible students and in the process keeping TAFE guessing, writes Sylvia Whitmore. While the TAFE sector’s initial reaction to the Bradley higher education reforms has been largely one of enthusiasm, there is increasing ...

College’s collapse leaves 61 stranded Another private training college in Victoria has collapsed, leaving scores of Australian students in limbo and raising fears that problems in international education have spread to colleges that teach local students, reports The Age. The College ...

Two board members of Julia Gillard’s handpicked advisory group, Skills Australia, have reportedly joined the chorus of discontent over the federal government’s flagship VET funding program. ACTU president Sharan Burrow and Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout – both ...

The Rudd government’s national broadband network will be a massive consumer of new skills which could prove to be a bonanza for the training sector. But questions as to how many training places, at what level, in what areas of ...

Do educators and business people share the same view of e-learning, asks John Mitchell. Over the past decade Australian VET has actively investigated e-learning from the perspectives of policy, theory and pedagogy, but not so much from the point of ...

Tenders called for green jobs corps The federal government has called for tenders to provide 10,000 training places under its National Green Jobs Corps. Parliamentary employment secretary Jason Clare said several changes had been made to the original tender following ...

The problems that have emerged in VET for international students could replicate themselves in domestic VET unless the federal government curtails its “ideological obsession” to foster competition in the training market, according to the Australian Education Union. AEU federal president ...

Is VET focused enough on the core business of quality teaching and the student experience, asks John Mitchell. Imagine this: a VET sector that places teaching and learning on a pedestal, as its core business. That values and promotes a ...