Big numbers for NCVER – comment by CEO Craig Robertson

This year is full of big numbers for NCVER. The 500th edition of the NCVER news was released last week, but more momentous, NCVER turns 40 this year and the annual No Frills conference will be its 30th.

The National Centre for Vocational Education Research commenced its life as the TAFE National Centre for Research and Development in November 1981.

Achievements abound. In the first 20 years, apart from telling the Australian story about TAFE vocational education activity it introduced student and employer satisfaction as a measure of outcomes for the sector. The second 20 years is remembered for Total VET Activity, the first time complete formal VET activity of all providers has been reported.

The research reports are more than just a reflection on the sector. Probably the most cited, is that by Gillian Goozee tracing the history of TAFE in Australia, followed closely by, Competence and competency-based training: What the literature says, a masterpiece from Hugh Guthrie in 2009.

Depending on which side of the competency fence one sits, the other one most cited is from Tom Karmel, Peter Mlotkowski and  Tomi Awodeyi in 2008 Is VET vocational? The relevance of training to the occupations of vocational education and training graduates. Not known for pulling any punches, Tom starts by saying the match between what people study and the jobs they get is pretty poor except for the trades. It has drawn staunch defence of the training package model even in the last 12 months.

Most disappointing in recent years, according to researchers I know, is the withdrawal of the open research program which allowed for experienced VET researchers to bid for work and to continue the rich commentary about VET. From what I am told by the research community it is not of NCVER’s doing but senior officials of government have taken over choosing the topics which warrant inclusion.

At a time when the VET sector needs as much input as possible there should be an open research program, so all views are given. While officials may argue their intervention helps target the effort, inexorably the research will reflect their perspective. The key to research is being free enough to publish what is uncomfortable – this is unlikely if the topic is massaged from the very start! At least with the uncomfortable from the likes of Karmel, the sector can be challenged to evolve.

Where to for the next 20 years for NCVER? We just need to recall how Facebook puts up adverts on our feeds that uncannily resemble the last search we did on the web, or how Amazon suggests new books aligned to our reading preferences to get a picture of the future – linked data fed to us instantly in consumable fashion.

VET data may need to be controlled by privacy rules, managed by strict protocols and subject to lengthy verification and cleansing steps, controlled by rules and bureaucrats, but it will not suit the instant timelines students expect. We are in an analogue process that just can’t compete in a digital world.

For a sector, whether rightly or wrongly, selling itself as providing the convenient pathway to a job, delays while governments cleanse and assure student records doesn’t seem to cut it.

You may say that providers can already provide instantaneous transcripts. That is true. But in a policy world promoting micro-credentials as bit learning and choice of provider to fit whimsy, the students, I suspect, will expect governments to feed them results from their range of engagements in a fashion available in other aspects of their lives.

Where the federal government is planning a micro-credentials marketplace – the grand bazaar of post-school learning – surely, it’s not too much to expect the government to also facilitate for results of that learning to be available to students. The conceptual divide between higher education and VET results, each with their own analogue processes, is an irrelevant excuse in the eyes of students when all they want is the results of their learning which makes sense and is available together.

Pie in the sky you might say. The Commodore 64 brought computing power to the home in 1981 and in 2001 the i-pod brought access to thousands of songs in a portable device to individuals, and today we have instant data feeds. In 2041 I’d expect I’ll be transferring my thoughts to some device which would cleanse and replay them instantly for communication to any point and anyone in the world. Anything seems possible in the learning world.

We will need NCVER more than even in the next 20 years to guide this journey and to be free to tell us the uncomfortable.

Other wishful thinking is that someone from a TAFE will be on the board of NCVER, especially considering its heritage.