News & Events
Is vocational education and training keeping up with the Joneses?
By Tom Karmel
Campus Review
10 November 2009
One of the eternal verities is that the workforce is continually changing. Structural change is ever present, with both labour demand and labour supply changing. In the 19th century Australia's workforce predominantly worked in agriculture. Now that proportion is around 3%; we are now in a post-industrial age with the service industries taking over from agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. We have also seen major changes in labour supply, the most notable being an increase in the number of women working (in the 1960s many women lost their jobs on getting married) and an expansion in the numbers looking for part-time work.
The other big change is the increase in education levels, with the average number of years at school increasing and many more people going on to a university or to a TAFE or other VET provider. In addition, there is a clear appetite in government for further increases in qualification levels. COAG has set a target of doubling the number of higher level VET qualification (diplomas and advanced diplomas) completions between 2009 and 2020. Julia Gillard has announced that the government's ambition is that by 2025, 40 per cent of all 25-34 year olds will have a qualification at bachelor level or above.
What I am interested in is whether the VET sector has been keeping up with these fundamental changes and whether it is well positioned for the future.
One misconception needs to be disposed of. Despite what is a popular perception, VET is more than training for the trades. VET has a very wide footprint. According to the 2006 census, over a third of employed persons had a VET qualification (a certificate up to a diploma), and over 20 per cent of every occupational group had a VET qualification, including managers and professionals. According to NCVER statistics, VET is well represented in all fields of education except the physical sciences: in 2008 the largest field was management and commerce (345,000 students), followed by engineering and related technologies (282,000 students) society and culture (177,000 students) and architecture and building (120,000 students).
VET is certainly playing its part in building a more educated workforce. When we look at changes in the proportions of employed persons with a VET qualification between the 1996 and the 2006 censuses we see increases overall of 2.2 percentage points for men and 3.6 percentage points for women. Drilling down we see increases in virtually every occupational group.
There's a fly in the ointment, however. Between 1996 and 2006 the number of professionals with a VET qualification has declined by 5.9 percentage points, and the increases among managers and administrators and associate professionals have been modest. The higher education sector is swamping the VET sector in the three most skilled and fastest growing occupational groups:
Change in the proportion of workforce with a qualification, 1996-2006 (%points)
| Change in workforce with a degree | Change in workforce with a VET qualification | |
| Managers and administrators | 10.3 | 1.3 |
| Professionals | 10.4 | -5.9 |
| Associate professionals | 7.3 | 3.5 |
By contrast, VET has been improving qualification levels among the lower skilled occupations: the proportion with a VET qualification increased by 12.5%pts among service workers, 7.6%pts among clerical workers, 6.9%pts among machine and plant operators, 5.7%pts among transport workers and 6.3%pts among labourers.
What has been happening at the 'top end' of the market is that a degree is becoming the staple entry level qualification. For example, consider the community services and health industry. In the paper Workforce planning for the community services and health industry, I proposed a simple taxonomy of occupations: university trained occupations in which over 90% of workers have a degree; tertiary trained occupations in which over 80% of workers have a degree or a diploma; and remaining occupations which I term vocationally trained. In 1996 there were only five university trained occupations: medical specialists, dentists, GPs, psychologists and speech pathologists, 16 tertiary trained and 13 vocationally trained community service and health occupations. By 2006 a further five occupations moved out of the tertiary trained group into the university trained group: optometrists, chiropractors and osteopaths, medical scientists, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists. Moreover the proportion of the workforce in a whole range of occupations with a degree increased by more than 20% points: health service managers, nurse managers, medical imagers, podiatrists, registered nurses, mental health nurses, developmental disability nurses, and ambulance drivers and paramedics.
This trend is not new. In the 1970s the standard qualification at a college of advanced education was a two year diploma. For example, most teachers were two year trained. Over the years we have seen the two year trained being replaced by the three year and four year trained. My children have done or are doing 4 or 5 year degree packages.
My point is that this 'professionalisation' of occupations throws a huge challenge to the VET sector. If it retains the two year diploma or advanced diploma as its high level qualification then it will lose any ambition to train managers, professional and associate professionals. It will either be left with training tradespersons and the lower skilled occupations or become a feeder to universities.
The alternative is to seize the role of training the vocational occupations, whether professional or sub-professional. While universities may have a stranglehold on medicine and dentistry, law, and engineering it seems to me that there is scope for VET to make its mark on the more applied professions and associate professions. Nursing, accounting, marketing, business, para-legal, para-medical, associate engineering to name some off the top of my head. VETs comparative advantage is that it can concentrate on teaching and is not burdened by the need to undertake research. I guess I am suggesting that VET providers, if they wish, could become polytechnics, similar to the colleges of advanced education in the 1970s. There would be a difference, though. VET providers also provide certificate level qualifications and thus would be in a position to provide integrated programs from lower level certificates to degrees.
Is this a pipe dream? Holmesglen is already training registered nurses. And the University of New South Wales was once the Sydney Mechanics Institute.
Dr Tom Karmel is Managing Director of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. For more information go to www.ncver.edu.au.
