Highly innovative organisations demonstrate six key characteristics. They create learning cultures which promote innovation as a core organisational capability; employ leaders who are 'failure-tolerant'; identify innovators; reward people who propose innovative ideas; use partnerships; and, promote innovation through teams. This report analyses how well vocational education and training (VET) providers employ the above characteristics. It finds VET organisations are making good progress as innovators, but this progress is uneven as three characteristics often dominate the building of innovation. Typically, VET providers identify innovators, develop partnerships and promote innovation through teams and communities of practice well. To develop innovation further, the author suggests VET organisations need to broaden the range of strategies they are using to promote innovation and offers practical steps to do so.
The number and variety of industry-provider training partnerships in the vocational education and training (VET) sector is growing considerably. This report investigates the nature of the larger VET industry training partnerships and provides practical guidelines for training providers when setting up and managing these specific partnerships. These guidelines include: recognising the competitive realities industries face and developing customised and flexible training to meet businesses' needs; accepting 'break even' outcomes may be the best initial result a training provider can expect from a partnership; finding and developing staff who are responsible for the start-up phase of the partnership; evaluating and seeking feedback on the partnership; and, building training staff capabilities.