Chance for a new compact with employers – comment by CEO Craig Robertson

When it comes to vocational education and training in Australia, I have always been curious about the term industry and even more about industry engagement. The interest has been piqued by the discussion paper from the federal department on the subject.

The paper states: The VET system must be improved to meet the rapidly changing needs of employers and businesses so they can grow and be internationally competitive, create new jobs and strengthen their labour market resilience. Followed closely by: These (areas for improvement) include strengthening industry engagement across the national training system, increased responsiveness to employer needs and skills change, and boosting student outcomes through better qualifications.

The task of qualification design and content rests with organised industry, working within a logic dating back to the 1980s. As I said last week, organised industry, including unions come together to agree the competencies that best represent the tasks of an occupation, trying to avoid wage blow-outs or compromising worker interests.

The competencies prescribing each qualification (occupation) cover the technical skills, plus the competencies for working safely and working with others (if they abide by the concept of competency introduced in this country in the 1980s). Packaging rules then dictate the must-do units and gives flexibility to the provider to add optional units to suit their business model, whether for students or local employers. A provider cannot be all things to all students, or all employers, however, because there are limits to funds and costs of compliance.

What is the magic industry ingredient, then? Despite the disruption to occupations and economic structures caused by automation (and super-charged by COVID responses) there are still industry-level standards of operation that are important for worker effectiveness. Take for example, safety standards for using a fork-lift, wiring a house, lifting a patient, front-of-house hospitality and the one we can all relate to – the standard for a decent coffee. When most people hear the term industry and VET I’m sure they have this concept in mind.

With this settled, structures and processes are needed for determining and settling those standards. The discussion paper acknowledges industry as industry associations and unions as part of the industry advisory arrangements but also adds employers, implying VET needs to do more for businesses as they appear unhappy.

If there is concern that businesses are not getting what they need, then there can only be two reasons. Firstly, they may disagree with the competencies their industry association negotiated into the training package, or secondly, they do not understand that the competencies have been defined for application across the industry. I suspect it is a bit of both but it doesn’t justify giving employers determination over qualifications. Sure, they have a clear voice into the process but where do their requirements stop?

I reckon businesses are sensible enough anyway to know that an industry-wide standard cannot deliver every skill they need in a worker, nor do they buy the rhetoric that VET graduates are job ready for the jobs they have in their business.

The discussion paper gives the opportunity to bring a stop to the tortured language around industry and settle on a clear view on what we mean by it. A new consensus can then be forged with business about what they can realistically expect from VET.

It is fair for them to expect that graduates have the skills and knowledge to the highest of industry standards so they bring new thinking and attributes to jobs. After all, the core logic of education systems in economies is to be the point of aggregation of knowledge and know-how to be passed on and dissipated through graduates to industry and society.

If it is graduates with skills and knowledge at industry-level standards then let’s reconstruct the industry advice to define those standards The extent to which current training packages are a reasonable facsimile of industry-level standards is a discussion for another time, as is the extent to which organised industry dictates the scope of teaching and learning for all forms of VET.

Divining industry and business in VET is one thing. How this meshes with the logic of students-at-the-centre-of-VET as announced by governments and recommended by the Productivity Commission, is another.

Good things to come back on in future weeks.