This report reviews the extensive literature on women and vocational education and training. It aims to provide material useful to policy-makers and practitioners in planning responses which are appropriate to the nature and scope of women's disadvantage in VET. It also aims to provide guidance to researchers and research funding bodies on gaps in the existing research and the direction for possible future research. The report covers the political landscape (economic reforms and social trends), insights on women's participation in VET and a discussion of social justice and approaches to equity within VET. It also includes an extensive bibliography.
The outcomes of this project were intended to facilitate and contribute to further research into the movement of students in both directions between TAFE and university and into cross-sectoral credit transfer arrangements.
This report considers how mentoring and mentor-like schemes can be developed by educational providers for the benefit of student learning.
This publication provides an overview of research findings on the pathways young people take when they leave school. Also examined are data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics which track the labour market outcomes of young people.
Older people are flocking to training. They are demonstrating that they want to learn and they can learn. They are also turning more and more to community providers rather than TAFE. Is TAFE oriented too much towards young people, at the expense of the older person?
The changing nature of indigenous involvement in vocational education and training (VET) over the past decade is one of the most remarkable transformations seen in Australia's educational history. The number of indigenous peoples in VET has grown from just a few thousand in the 1980s to almost 45 000 in 1998. Inequality between indigenous peoples and other Australians in overall participation in VET has now been eliminated. VET providers, particularly TAFE, have opened their doors to indigenous peoples. They have responded and are enrolling in VET courses in record numbers. They are staying in the programs and successfully completing them in greater numbers than ever before. However, there are still many issues that need to be addressed such as balancing representation across courses, improving pass rates and employment outcomes and reducing withdrawal rates. This study suggests strategies that focus on more appropriate provision of courses and improving the outcomes achieved by indigenous students.
The key problem explored by this research is whether initial vocational education and training and associated support services assist early school leavers to negotiate an effective transition from school to adult roles. The report also examines the gap between provision and demand for VET and associated services barriers, to full access and use of the available programs and services by the at-risk early school leavers.
A synopsis of the papers presented at the NCVER conference 'Industry Training Outlook: Where's your Industry going?' in October 1998. Topics covered include training developments in Australia, meeting national and employer training requirements, meeting employee training requirements and training challenges in Australia's manufacturing industries. Papers also address issues such as new paradigms for training and learning work skills, research and development: beyond the bottom line, where the jobs are: the outlook for jobs, competition and collaboration: servicing industry's needs, and industry training in Australia today.
This report addresses some of the issues surrounding small business participation in training and other learning activities, and the relationship between participation and business success. The project surveyed 181 businesses employing fewer than 20 people in the construction, manufacturing, property and business services, and the various networks of small business people. The result of the study showed that businesses with owner/managers and/or employees with post-school qualifications were more likely to be successful. Ongoing learning and training in order to improve efficiency and deal with change were associated with successful small businesses.
This book comprises the combined papers presented at concurrent sessions on research into a training culture at the conference 'Creating our future: A new training culture for Australia' held in Brisbane, August 1998, by the Australian National Training Authority. Industrial development of a training culture, individuals' and enterprises' motives for training, economic forces for learning and how research can facilitate change in training are discussed by Australia's top researchers.
The report represents the results of the first comprehensive quantitative study of the outcomes achieved by Indigenous peoples enrolling in VET courses in colleges within the Aboriginal community-controlled adult education sector. It shows what a valuable contribution the Aboriginal community-controlled adult education sector has been making to the improvement in Indigenous education and training.
This book addresses the issue of whether or not skills learnt in one context are able to transfer successfully to other contexts. The findings showed that being able to perform a skill successfully in one context is not a guarantee of being able to perform the same skill in a different context. However, higher levels of proficiency in the first task increased the likelihood of higher levels of proficiency in the second task. Comparisons are made for males and females and for students of different ability groupings.
This study compared costs of delivering workplace and TAFE-based courses in three industries - retail, hospitality and automotive. The data that were gathered provide an insight into the comparative costs of training and how they are distributed across governments, employers and trainees.