Calling TAFEs to input into the national reform agenda – comment by Jenny Dodd

One week into my interim role as CEO of TDA, I have participated in a lot of briefings and consultation discussions, mainly led by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE). Indeed, I thought I knew much of the agenda, but it seems I didn’t have the full grasp of everything that is happening. So, today for the benefit of all TAFEs, I thought I would summarise the main components, acknowledging that this does not fully encompass all that is on the agenda.

The three main parts of the national reform agenda include the Qualification reform, the Quality reform and industry engagement reform.
Let’s start with the Qualification reform. As mentioned in last week’s newsletter, the TAFE CEO-Industry roundtable on Friday 27 August heard from the three Service Organisations regarding the pilots they are conducting in qualification design. To hear their presentations as well as the two Skills Service Organisations that were part of that industry engagement session, please read the next article and go to the link for the recording.

This is just part of the piece regarding qualification design. This week DESE has released a survey and times for a series of workshops on how new qualification design might work in practice (see the link in this newsletter below with a deadline of 20 September).

In terms of the second major reform, DESE has released a consultation draft of the proposed VET Workforce Quality Strategy. The development of the strategy occurred in the later part of last year and the first quarter of 2021. As per the DESE paper ‘Feedback from this consultation highlighted the importance of having high-quality trainers and assessors within RTOs …’ (page 3).

The four key themes raised in the consultations are summarised under the following headings: capability frameworks and professional standards, industry currency, professional development and support, and supporting learner cohorts. Feedback on the consultation draft of the proposed VET Workforce Quality Strategy is public and is due one week after the Qualification design feedback. You can use the link above to access the feedback spot.

The third part of the national reform concerns industry engagement. In my piece in the newsletter last week, we promised to share more of the presentations by the Service Organisations mentioned above. You will find a summary of their messages and the link to their presentations in the next part of this newsletter. They are an important part of the industry engagement and the qualification design review.

Additionally, in regards industry engagement, next week TDA will be briefed on the findings of the Transition Advisory Group (TAG) regarding recommended new industry engagement arrangements. You will have heard mention ‘Industry Clusters’, and this is part of the TAG proposal. The aim is to ensure that the design of training products has strong industry engagement. Next week we will outline these developments.

Finally, there are several other working groups, such as the Micro-credentials Working Group. We will focus in future newsletters on developments from these various working groups.

I encourage TAFEs to submit to the consultations or to contact the TDA Secretariat with perspectives that your TAFE would like represented.

It’s great Spring is here – for those of us in the Southern States and in lockdown the beautiful blue sky of last week makes all the difference. We hope all our students hang in there during this time. And we thank our workforces for continuing to deliver high quality training and assessment without always being able to access their training locations.