Brain food – Sandwich sessions and CEET* conference
*Centre for the Economics of Education and Training
CONVERSATION EXEMPLAR | San MacColl, Coordinator, TAFE Educational Strategy, TAFE NSW
It can be both a challenge expanding your horizons and a pleasure establishing and renewing contacts, exchanging ideas and networking. Professional development is also about sharing what you’ve learnt with your colleagues. The Sandwich Sessions, for TAFE staff in Oxford Street, provides a perfect forum for this. Initiated in 2006, by Simon Paine, A/General Manager TAFE Operations, and coordinated by Gail Curran, they follow a format of a short lunchtime session in a friendly atmosphere with plenty of time for questions and discussion.
‘Professional development is… about sharing what you’ve learnt with your colleagues.’
Sessions throughout 2006 have included a range of diverse subjects including introductions to software programs such as TeamSite, SharePoint, Prince2 and Clarity and the TAFE Online 2 project. One session focused on examining the truth behind various myths about TAFE NSW and another looked at the LMBR (Learning Management and Business Reform) project. Mobile Learning will be featured in February of this year. Attendance has been good with up to 30 participants at some of the sessions.
Something to chew on…
‘The current focus is on the need to increase workforce participation by youth, the mature-aged and women, as well as the need to provide more workforce development and participation in industry partnerships.’
In my Sandwich Session, I provided a brief account of the main themes of the CEET conference I was privileged to attend in Melbourne on 3 November 2006. Feedback from colleagues included comments on how useful it is to learn a bit about these national developments informally over a sandwich, or a muffin, as the case may be, which you wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to do.
CEET, is the Centre for the Economics of Education and Training. The conference is an annual event and this year its theme was Australian Education and Training: new policies, with Michael Keating (Chair of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal NSW) as the keynote speaker. Other speakers included Julian Teicher (Monash), Tom Karmel (NCVER), Megan Lilly (AIG) and Gerald Burke (CEET).
With the huge amount that’s being done on projections of future VET needs and funding in these circles, you could be forgiven for thinking we’d moved into vocational economics and training. The current focus is on the need to increase workforce participation by youth, the mature-aged and women, as well as the need to provide more workforce development and participation in industry partnerships.
Food for thought
Highlights of the CEET conference included hearing the employer perspective from the Australian Industry Group research and the importance of the shift from skills formation to workforce development; the latest on trade predictions (will we ever be able to get a plumber or builder when we need one?); the growth in high-skilled occupations; and the mismatch, for example, between the jobs with a VET pathway (62.3% of employment) and people with VET qualifications (29.9% of the working population).
Lowlights were the appalling funding level of VET – a decline of 11% from 1999 to 2004; and the gap between the amount of VET training needed and the funding that’s on the table – one fifth nationally including the new Skills for the Future funds. And where are the women? Will I ever be able to get a female plumber?
Despite the golden opportunity to encourage (more) female participation in trade skill shortage areas, the national agenda looks set to entrench the gender segregation in trades, and strategies will have to be developed at the local level to turn it around.
TAFE NSW Women’s Programs Unit have some current strategies:
- a major initiative to connect large employers with potential female apprentices through job brokerage in skill shortage areas, starting 2007
- a partnership with Careers Advisors and/or the School to Work program to increase the participation of young women in both the 15-19 and 20-24 age groups through promoting the full range of TAFE NSW training options to young women in schools. These include options in skill shortage areas and in paraprofessional occupations.
Some of the main themes of the CEET conference in relation to vocational education were:
- research on employer views and their contribution to training
- workforce development
- higher level qualifications
- trade training projections
- youth participation
- industrial awards and skills formation
- training and employment participation rates, and
- funding options.
See also
Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal Final Report Up-skilling NSW
Allens Consulting Group, The complete package: the value of TAFE NSW
Conversation for Learning | A-Z Resources