An overview

Flexible delivery and the modularisation of training delivery

The modularisation of vocational education and training programmes involves breaking up longer courses into shorter programmes (such as subjects) that can be assessed on completion. This has promoted the enrolment of a more diverse range of students in vocational education and training, particularly adults who are already employed. Modules have encouraged people to take shorter bouts of training to meet a particular skill acquisition need, without requiring them to immediately enrol in a full vocational education and training course leading to a qualification.

The modularised training system in Australia had the following characteristics in 1997:

• some 1.46 million people enrolled in one or more publicly funded vocational education and training courses or programmes
  
• this amounted to 1.84 million courses
  
• it has involved enrolment in 9.88 million modules and the provision of over 300 million hours of training
• but only 55% of enrolments were in programmes leading immediately to a Diploma or Certificate qualification.

More work is needed in Australia to make sure all publicly funded training articulates with one or more full qualification programmes, should participants decide to do further vocational education and training modules in the future. Similarly, better mechanisms to record the training already successfully completed (such as the development of a national skills passport system) also needs further exploration.

Australia’s vocational education and training system is based on the concept of flexible delivery of training. The various training pathways described in this report were developed historically to:

• ensure people from rural and remote areas in Australia could gain equitable access to vocational education and training programmes
  
• encourage more adults needing to upgrade skills to undertake vocational education and training by providing more part-time, night time, weekend, and open learning options to participate in training
• provide alternative learning options to some disadvantaged groups of Australians, such as indigenous people, people with special learning needs and people with different language requirements.

More recently, the focus has also been on ensuring that there are more work-based and non-classroom pathways for vocational education and training to ensure skills gained are more relevant to industry needs.

These policies have had great success in Australia. Equitable vocational education and training participation is now largely occurring between rural and urban Australia and among different ethnic groups. More needs to be done, however, to improve vocational education and training access to people with disabilities.

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