Australia won’t fix its skills system by simply throwing lots of money at it, according to an alliance of unions, business and specialist training organisations which has called for VET providers to be funded more realistically. The National Skills Policy ...

Applications open for VET infrastructure grants Applications from public sector and large community VET providers for funding under the $200 million Training Infrastructure Investment for Tomorrow (TIIT) program are now open. While consortia of industry and community bodies can be ...

Funding arrangements for the Productivity Places Program (PPP) have given rise to “a perverse set of delivery arrangements”, a senior bureaucrat told this month’s Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association conference.

A senior Canberra bureaucrat has conceded that more research may be needed to justify proposed market-based reforms of Australia’s skills system. But rather than complain about “evidence-free policy”, VET commentators should themselves compile research in the area. Craig Robertson, group ...

Will improved broadband do more than simply let VET providers share larger files with their students, asks John Mitchell. The unexpected announcement that the federal government will invest $43 billion in rolling out a broadband network over the next eight ...

VET’s uniqueness of purposes seems to be getting lost in the current debate about a terntiary education sector, says Malcolm White. In my opinion, the current discussion about the roles of VET and higher education emanating from the Bradley review ...

Reflection is both a starting point and a tipping point for improving self-perception, and in turn, the nature and quality of vocational learning, says Larry Smith. During 2008, Berwyn Clayton from Victoria University and I interviewed a wide range of ...

Completing an apprenticeship or traineeship delivers significant financial and employment advantages. New research from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research has found that recently completed apprentices and trainees who were employed full-time in 2008 earned 16 per cent more ...

VET marketisation is back on the agenda, with the government’s key skills advisory body proposing a “managed market reform approach” to VET funding. And Skills Australia wants a single national regulatory body covering both VET and higher education. The proposals ...

What are the lessons for providers from the controversial government tender for employment services? The federal government faced a public relations backlash following the recent announcement that respected church-based organisations such as the Wesley Mission had lost their contracts to ...