How the trend towards an integrated tertiary sector impacts on the way NCVER thinks about its research and statistical activities is briefly considered in this discussion paper.
The relationship between job requirements, individual skills and the participation of workers in further education and training, with an emphasis on older workers, is the focus of this report.
This paper provides an account of the management strategies and processes that TAFE institutes use to evaluate their performance.
In this interview, Steve Davis talks with researcher Leesa Wheelahan about her report Higher Education in TAFE. Technical and further education (TAFE) institutes offering higher education degrees is a relatively new development but is expected to grow as a consequence of government policies aimed at increasing the percentage of Australians holding a bachelor degree. This project considers the provision and different perspectives of higher education qualifications offered by TAFE institutes, focusing on degrees and associate degrees.
This report considers different perspectives of higher education qualifications offered by TAFE institutes, focusing on associate degrees and degrees.
In light of recent developments in educational policy and the positioning of vocational education and training (VET) across the European Union, it was timely to explore these new directions and the lessons for Australian VET.
NCVER commissioned six leading thinkers to offer insights into what is meant by a training market, constraints upon that market and the areas for improvement in the system which would allow consumers greater choice.
This paper was presented by Robin Shreeve at the NCVER Research on Toast seminar in March 2009. It briefly compares the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia with its equivalent in England, which is known as the skills or further education sector. The paper then outlines two key aspects of the English VET sector which might be of use to Australia: using course completion rates as a key performance measure at all levels of the VET sector; and using vocational 'foundation degrees' as a way for students to articulate between the VET and higher education sectors
In this At a glance we summarise what is known about student transfer between the vocational education and training (VET) and higher education sectors. Transfer occurs when a student who has enrolled in one sector subsequently commences a qualification in the other. Some students have completed their first qualification, but some have not. The second qualification may be in the same field of education as the first or a different one. Transfer may occur early in a person's career and be part of a period of adjustment as they refine their career goals. It may also occur at a much later stage and be related to new career directions. We find that data on transfer between these tertiary education sectors is subject to many limitations and that estimates of the magnitude of transfer in both directions vary greatly.
Growth in mixed-sector institutions offering both vocational and higher education qualifications is expected to increase given recent and predicted policy changes. This issues paper focuses on the provision and management of higher education in TAFE institutes. Issues raised for discussion include the governance of mixed-sector institutions as well as ensuring access and maintaining progression to higher education without sectoral division in the institution. Implications arising from the Bradley review of higher education are canvassed and the authors are inviting discussion on a range of questions related to the nature of policies and practices influencing the provision of higher education in TAFE.
This paper discusses a number of aspects of this tertiary education sector: the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF), which describes the qualifications offered by the three education sectors: schools, higher education and VET; student characteristics of the two sectors; a characterisation of higher education and VET; and student movement between the two sectors.
This paper was presented to a meeting of the Wellington Exchange, an international group of higher education officials, in December 2008.
This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the quality and accessibility of underpinning knowledge in competency-based training. It uses the Vocational Graduate Certificate and the Vocational Graduate Diploma in Education Design in a Queensland TAFE institute to examine how the 'traditional' knowledge and theory associated with higher-level qualifications can be accommodated within the framework of competency-based training and assessment. The paper raises some interesting, and provocative, questions about the status and value of these qualifications by comparison with their university counterparts.