The project will document the full range of expenditure on formal and informal training for firms in three industry sectors-construction; retail and manufacturing. The primary aims of the research are to aid VET strategic and resource planning at the industry level in part by identifying approaches to financing training and models that could be applicable to other industry sectors.
The project will document the VET-related training (accredited and unaccredited) that occurs in firms in the three industries; the funding sources; the funding models used by firms; and the role of VET sector reforms in encouraging expenditure. It will look at the distribution of different types of training across occupations in the different firms.
1. What expenditure on VET-related training is made by employers and what is the balance between:
* Accredited and non-accredited, formal and informal, training?
* In-house and externally provided training?
* Provision of training to different groups in the workforce?
2. How are these different forms of training funded: government, employer and individual?
3. What data do firms maintain on training activity and how can these activities be effectively measured?
4. Can the variation in expenditure and sources of funding across industries/firms be explained: Is the extent to which training activities are integrated within a broader learning and development and human resource management strategy important?
5. What are the implications for policies that would encourage employers to increase their total investment in learning and development?
This project will take an explicitly qualitative approach, using in-depth studies of a small number of firms. The studies will examine the training conducted by these firms, the financing of the different forms of their training and their measures and records of training and training-related activities. The methodology involves:
1. A critical review of the literature on the nature, financing and recording of employer training. This phase will draw on the Australian surveys-The Training Expenditure Survey, The Training Practices Survey, The Survey of Education and Training and The Business Longitudinal Survey, of international surveys from the USA and Europe, review studies conducted by SKOPE, the Institute for Employment Studies and the Centre for Labour Market Studies in the UK.
2. Expert interviews through focus groups to explore the ways in which different forms of training are financed, how training is recorded and what information is likely to be available at the enterprise level that could be collected. The stakeholders will include employers, skills councils, employer associations, unions, state training authorities and DEST.
3. Six in-depth case studies to examine these issues at a deeper and more grounded level with a particular focus on the type of training provided, the financing of training and the measurement and recording of training and training-related activities.
The integration of the research into a final report will involve consideration of the findings from the interviews with stakeholders and the case studies to draw implications for the industries studied but also, backed by the critical review of research, the broader implications for other industries/sectors. Industry Sectors
This project will use these methods to explore training activity among firms in three industries that exhibit different patterns of training:
The construction industry has a tradition of an employer levy for training that is an example of an alternative approach to funding training.
The retail industry is rapidly expanding the range and volume of the training it offers to employees (Smith E, et al. forthcoming). The expansion is partly prompted by the availability of new nationally recognised training packages and by the existence of substantial numbers of employees who have previously received little formal training.
The manufacturing industry has traditionally supported a higher level of training activity and expenditure. Enterprises tend to use a mix of accredited and non-accredited training and a variety of forms of financing that training.
The Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET) is a joint venture of Monash University - the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Business and Economics - and the Australian Council for Educational Research, (ACER). The Centre undertakes research, research training, consultancies and dissemination on the economics and finance of education and training. Further details are available on the Centre's web site www.education.monash.edu.au/centres/ceet.
Charles Sturt University is well known as an institution that has supposes vigorous VET research capability over many years. Staff from the School of Education and Commerce frequently work together to investigating issues at the interface between management and vocation al education and training. CSU has won a number of NCVER and other grants over the last 10 years to carry out leading edge research in VET.
