Towards more effective continuing education and training for Australian workers

This report is the final report of a three-year program of research that aimed to investigate what might constitute an effective continuing education and training system. The premise behind the project is that the entry-level focus of the current education and training system may not address the ongoing needs of Australian workers. During the three-year program, the researchers proposed four models of continuing education and training with the potential to form the basis of an effective national system. These models are: wholly work-based; work-based with direct guidance; work-based with educational interventions; and wholly education institution-based. This final stage of the research, involving consultations with VET professionals and personnel from key agencies in the VET sector, sought to assess the suitability and sustainability of these four models.

Key messages

• VET practitioners and managers saw value in the four models. However, they recognised that their success depended upon the models being: enacted in authentic work practices; directly benefiting the workplaces in which they are enacted; supporting improved teaching and learning practices; and enabling consistency around compliance and accreditation requirements.
• Senior personnel from three key agencies (one government and two peak bodies) acknowledged an increasing trend towards work-based learning and highlighted emerging issues. These include a tension between training for immediate skills versus obtaining accredited qualifications, a lack of flexibility by registered training organisations (RTOs) to undertake more training in workplaces due to cultural and cost factors, the need for accredited training to be an integral part of workforce development, and the influence of existing funding models in determining how training is provided rather than supporting what may be more effective.
• While some administrative and regulatory changes may be required, it was evident that a widespread learning culture is a key component in enabling effective continuing education and training. Changes across the training system that would support this focus include: support at the national policy level; greater involvement of employers; willingness on the part of training providers to develop and deliver training in new ways; support from managers and supervisors for different ways of learning; and positive worker engagement.

The authors argue that the overall findings of the project suggest that a broader concept of a national continuing education and training system is required, one that shifts the focus away from education organised by and through education institutions towards one that better encompasses workers’ needs and workplace requirements. Acknowledgment, support and recognition of the value of work-based learning are fundamental to achieving this more holistic continuing education and training system.

Craig Fowler
Managing Director, NCVER

This is the final report of a three-year research project that aimed to identify and evaluate the potential models and practices of learning support that might constitute a national approach to workers’ continuing education and training. The identification of a national approach to continuing education and training is emerging as a priority for the nation's vocational education and training (VET) system because of changing work requirements, an ageing workforce and lengthening working lives. This research was motivated by a concern that entry-level training models may not best address workers’ continuing education and training needs (see Billett et al. 2012a).

Previous reports on the project (Billett et al. 2012a, 2014) describe how a range of models and practices of continuing education and training were appraised and refined through interviews and surveys undertaken with 137 workers and 60 managers in five industries across four Australian states. This process led to the identification of four models of continuing education as being the most effective and which were preferred by workers and supervisors involved in learning within workplaces. These four models are: wholly work-based; work-based with direct guidance; work-based with educational interventions; and wholly education institution-based.

The final phase of the project involved a series of roundtable discussions, in which a total of 62 VET professionals (practitioners and managers) were asked to appraise the suitability and sustainability of the four proposed models of education and training from their perspectives. Consultations were also held with a number of senior representatives of three key national agencies concerned with training and workforce development: a central agency in the Australian Government department providing advice on the vocational education system and its contributions to workforce skills and productivity, and two peak national agencies for both the public and private provision of vocational education.

The purpose of this report is twofold: to report on the outcomes of the final consultations; and to present conclusions about continuing education and training models and practices that support workers’ ongoing employability and workforce development. The report’s conclusions also draw on the earlier phases of the project.

VET professionals

The VET professionals’ considerations of the four models focused on their potential effectiveness and sustainability, and the extent to which they:

• are enacted in authentic work practices 
  There was consensus about the necessity of the work-based experiences being part of continuing education and training provision. However, this consensus was qualified by a number of caveats, such as the size of the workplace (for example, larger workplaces providing better support), opportunities for learning (for example, effective organisation of learning experiences) and workplace capacity to assist workers’ learning (for example, presence of experienced mentors, coaches etc.). 
• directly benefit the workplaces in which they are enacted
  The benefits to enterprises from workplace-oriented continuing education and training provision were identified as comprising: less downtime and need to ‘backfill’ staff; better utilisation of existing staff through mentoring and other forms of local support; and the ability to prioritise, target and customise training specific to immediate enterprise needs.
• support improved teaching and learning practices
  All models were held to offer a means of ‘modernising’ VET practices, which could improve both workers’ skills development and also extend VET practitioners’ pedagogic skills.
• enable VET system needs such as compliance and accreditation requirements
  The VET professionals’ proposal that ensuring compliance and accreditation requirements are met is central to the effectiveness of continuing education and training. They suggested that the education institution-based models (that is, work-based with educational interventions and wholly education institution-based) were most aligned with meeting compliance and accreditation requirements, with the wholly work-based model being least aligned with these requirements. Although the work-based with educational interventions model was preferred and the one that is most closely aligned with their current practice, this choice does not always accord with the preferences of workers and managers, whose preferred model of training depended on the desired outcomes (as reported in Billett et al. 2014).

VET professionals also identified the means by which a workplace-oriented continuing education and training system would be effective and sustainable. They proposed that workplace personnel needed to: develop a learning culture in which learning is valued; plan and finance continuing education and training as part of their business plans; and generate capacities that will avoid their reliance on registered training organisations (RTOs) for advice about continuing education and training, and its implementation. These informants also suggested that VET professionals need to further develop their understanding of, and skills for enacting, continuing education and training in workplaces and support workplaces with their provision of continuing education and training. These dual goals could be realised through building and sustaining effective partnerships between training organisations and workplaces (Billett & Seddon 2004).

Key agencies

Consultations with the three key national agencies identified four issues: a tension between training for immediate skill needs and obtaining accredited qualifications; a lack of flexibility in registered training organisations to implement continuing education and training provision in workplaces due to  RTOs’ established cultures and cost factors; the need for continuing education and training (through RTOs) to be an integral part of workforce and organisational development; and the influence of existing funding models in determining how training is provided rather than taking account of what is educationally effective.

Although holding diverse views about whether funding was the key barrier to more flexible continuing education and training provision, the agencies generally agreed that inflexibility in the practices of registered training organisations contributes to their lack of responsiveness to changing requirements. Nevertheless, the challenges were recognised as being very demanding for registered training organisations that tailor continuing education and training provision for specific purposes and workplaces while accommodating the requirements for nationally accredited training.

Conclusions: effective provision of continuing education and training 

A broad conclusion from all phases of the study is that an effective model of national continuing education and training provision needs to include and accommodate learning experiences in both work and educational settings. Yet, depending upon whether individuals are learning a new occupation or developing a specialisation, engaged in responding to workplace-specific requirements or seeking to change occupations, these needs will be met through distinct models. Developing new occupational capacities, for example, may require structured arrangements across the two settings. Ongoing occupational development, however, may be best addressed in and through work activities. Nevertheless, employees seeking to enter a new occupation or gain advancement in ways not accommodated by their workplaces may need an education institution-based option; hence, while work-based options remain a preferred feature, the other models offer necessary continuing education and training pathways.

Given the emphasis on initial occupational preparation in the nation’s vocational education system, the development of an effective continuing education and training system may require cultural change across the training system. Moreover, developing a widespread, well understood and accepted ‘learning culture’ in Australian workplaces, with the aim of progressing effective continuing education and training, will also require changes.

Key findings from the three-year project

The four models identified and appraised through this research offer a platform for stakeholders to design, implement and evaluate the provision of continuing education and training. Continuing education and training is a key component of the national vocational education system, one that addresses individual, workplace and workforce development goals. However, its potential and purposes need to be clearly understood, and its provision supported appropriately to achieve these goals across a range of educational and work settings.

Implications for government

• To bring about cultural change associated with continuing education, governments at national and state levels need to promote its importance, highlight the breadth of its provision and adopt policy and educational procedures that are amenable to circumstances whereby individuals learn across their working lives. Most notably, accreditation and regulatory arrangements that can accommodate, support and certify learning in and through work are necessary.
• Regulatory, administrative and financing processes need to be flexible enough to accommodate the range of purposes for continuing education and training and the circumstances in which learning is enacted (for example, in workplaces).

Implications for educational systems and educators

• The flexibility of registered training organisations’ systems and processes and the ability of their staff to implement approaches for delivering continuing education and training influence the extent to which continuing education and training can be effectively enacted to meet worker—learners’ and employers’ needs.
• Educators in registered training organisations need to adapt their curriculum and instructional capacities to the conditions and requirements of Australian workplaces.

Implications for workplaces

• Workplaces are identified as sites with great potential for maintaining and enhancing workforce skills. In most instances, this ongoing learning is best supported and guided through engagement in work tasks, given that their context and activities involve authentic activities and subsequent monitoring of what is learned.
• Workers, their managers and supervisors all have key roles in enhancing the effectiveness of continuing education and training provision in work settings, and these individuals need to be supported and guided accordingly.

Key areas for further development include the implementation of the four models in ways that address particular workplace goals and circumstances while meeting individuals’ readiness and goals for continued learning across their working lives.

How to enable more effective continuing education and training

The findings of the research provide an opportunity to reassess how the ongoing learning and training needs of Australian workers are currently met, with a view to making continuing education and training a more integral part of the nation’s workforce development strategy. Suggestions for the future include:

• encouraging and supporting workers to recognise, value and participate optimally in work-based learning experiences
• developing mature partnerships between registered training organisations and workplaces that support workforce development and workplace-based activities for ongoing work-related learning
• preparing and supporting workplace managers and supervisors to be effective in their roles as training managers, mentors and coaches, and in negotiating appropriate training and certification
• assisting VET practitioners to develop the capacities to promote, guide, assess and certify learning in workplace settings
• developing national policies and regulations to accommodate the diverse purposes, practices and settings of continuing education and training
• implementing administrative and funding models that are sympathetic to and supportive of a broad-based and encompassing continuing education and training system.