TAFE-Industry Roundtable: Connect and Co-Create – Perspectives from industry organisations

Over the coming weeks, we will share recordings from the recent virtual TAFE-Industry Roundtable held on Friday 27 August 2021. The first recording provides insightful perspectives from Skill Organisations (SO) and Skills Service Organisations (SSO) on effective industry engagement.

The three SOs covering human services, digital technology, and mining, and two of the SSOs, Innovation Business Skills Australia (IBSA) and Australian Industry Standards, led a conversation about the criticality of industry engagement. They outlined their views about effective industry partnerships, priorities, challenges, and the role of TAFEs.

Common themes and messages included:

  • The need to better understand industry pain points and workforce demands and collaborate with employers and industry to address issues; important to demonstrate value to all employers be they small, medium or large;
  • Re-skilling and upskilling for employers are priorities; training needs to be flexible and agile to meet industry demand for skills;
  • Digital transformation is occurring in all industry sectors; need to focus on digital technology transition processes;
  • The need for a common language in training products and understanding digital skills pathways; opportunity to include digital capability in training products reviews;
  • Opportunities exist to better codify VET staff capabilities in digital technology;
  • The importance of lifelong learning supports and opportunities;
  • Apprenticeships continue to be the bedrock of the skills system;
  • Mismatched qualifications still exist – need to work out how to use the TAFE and the VET systems more broadly; need flexible, stackable qualifications which include micro-credentials;
  • Better services needed before, during and after training to engender a culture of lifelong learning;
  • Need TAFEs for digital transformation and lifelong learning opportunities – leave no worker behind in the existing workforce;
  • TAFEs continue to have an important role to play in skills building but must be flexible, responsive and timely;
  • Align and collaborate with TAFEs – the TAFE sector is very important in digital upskilling.

If you would like to see the full recording, you can watch the video here.