Opening doors for all – comment by CEO Jenny Dodd

At the request of TDA, we are pleased to share reflections from incoming Jobs and Skills Australia Deputy Commissioner, Megan Lilly, as she exists Australian Industry Group.

Today I commence my new role as Deputy Commissioner – Jobs and skills Australia. This change gives me pause for reflection of the past 30 years spent at the intersection of education and training and work, dominated by over 20 years at Ai Group.  Over this time reform has been a constant, but success has been variable.  It is always important to understand where we have come from and what has evolved.  However, I wish to focus on where we are.

My time at Ai Group has given me a unique insight into the relationship between education and training and skills and capabilities for work, and how getting that right can drive economic transition and growth.  The current federal government’s reform agenda is continuing at pace.  It is easy to get caught up in the specifics of particular reform initiatives.  Of course this is important to do, detail must always be prosecuted.  However, considering the current raft of cross-portfolio reforms gives a more insightful understanding of the nature and direction of the reforms. The big directional markers are the Universities Accord, the National Skills Agreement, the Migration Review and the Employment White Paper.  These all intersect and at times overlap with each other.  They are supported by new or amended structural responses, such as the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA), the Jobs and Skills Councils (JSC) and the proposed establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC).

Combined, all of these reforms have the potential to create the connected and coherent tertiary sector that Australia needs.  Specifics within this body of work include VET Qualification Design Reform, development of a National Skills Taxonomy and progress, albeit tentative, on reforming the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF).

Indeed, many of the directions of reform are clearly articulated in Rethinking Tertiary Education: Building on the work of Peter Noonan.  The book drew upon the policy expertise and experience of the authors developed over the past decade in conjunction with both sides of politics.  Fundamental to creating a connected and coherent tertiary sector is committing to a future-facing revised AQF.

The 2019 Expert Review of the Qualification Framework, led by Professor Peter Noonan, took a good hard look at the AQF structure and recommended some major architectural changes. For example, one significant flaw identified was that the Framework takes a hierarchical approach, privileging knowledge over skills, and therefore higher education over vocational education. This is unnecessarily binary, and really, a fiction. The reality is that skills and knowledge are intertwined, with all jobs requiring both, but in different combinations.

For an education and training system to properly enable lifelong learning (as it must) learners must be able to develop both skills and knowledge in flexible ways, and to be able to move up and down the levels with much greater ease than is currently the case.

The current framework also doesn’t adequately address the context in which skills and knowledge are developed, and the importance of application. This means recognising that skills are acquired and practised through applying the learning in context – for example, a workplace. Qualifications, and therefore qualifications frameworks, must acknowledge this reality, in order to be clear about how learning happens, and expected learning outcomes.

As you can see, much still needs to be done.  It is the right time to lean into this reform.  We can progress towards a more fit-for-purpose tertiary sector where VET is valued and recognised for its strengths and achievements.

Working at Ai Group has been a privilege, an opportunity for which I am deeply grateful.  It is that opportunity that has opened up my next step at JSA.  I look forward to continuing to work with TDA in my new role and of course, working with Ai Group in a different capacity.