Research

Summary page

Research

Complex not simple: The vocational education and training pathway from
welfare to work by Kate Barnett and John Spoehr

The Welfare to Work initiative aims to move people from income support to paid work.While the primary emphasis of this policy has been on getting people into jobs, many of those targeted need to undertake training in order to get sustainable employment, thus posing a new challenge to vocational education and training (VET) providers.

The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) commissioned two studies to investigate the role ofVET in theWelfare toWork initiative:this report, Complex not simple:The vocational education and training pathway from welfare to work by Kate Barnett and John Spoehr, and one by John Guenther and colleagues called The role of vocational education and training in welfare to work.This report is the ﬁrst of these two.

Key message

The research found that most of those in the target groups—people with a disability, women returning to the workforce, long-term unemployed people—wanted to study.There were, however, barriers to their doing this, including:

policies about eligibility to train and limitations on funding for longer courses

difﬁculties in taking up training opportunities, for example, because of poor literacy and numeracy or other study skills, lack of transport and/or child care services

inadequate understanding of the welfare and training systems among both Centrelink and VET staff

the absence of sufﬁcient student support services.

The study points to the importance of prevocational courses that address basic and remedial education needs, as well as offer personal support services.These courses provide entry into mainstream VET and, it is to be hoped, into jobs.The researchers concluded that, given its experience in promoting access and equity, the VET sector, particularly the technical and further education (TAFE) component, would be in a position to offer a pathway into work for the Welfare to Work target groups.

Tom Karmel
Managing Director, NCVER