Learning collaborations between ACE and vocational education and training providers: Good practice partnerships

This study examines partnerships and collaborations between the adult and community education (ACE) and vocational education and training (VET) sectors in Australia, where organisations come together initially to expedite delivery of courses to vocational students. The research is aimed at identifying those good practices which support and promote both formal and informal partnerships and how such practices, in turn, benefit the communities in which they operate. The key messages arising from the research follow.

• Successful partnerships are highly dependent on having lead personnel based in each of the collaborating organisations who are strongly committed to the partnership effort. A key factor of the partnership's success is the length of time it exists. The longer a partnership has been operating, the more committed its personnel become to continuing the collaboration.

• The development phase is a particularly crucial time; those partnerships that fail appear to do so within the first two years. Partnerships also fail because of misunderstandings between organisations about the aims and objectives each has for the collaboration, and the expectations about what students involved can achieve.

• A key factor in promoting positive relationships between organisations in a partnership is maintaining respect both for each other and the varied stakeholders involved.

• Good communication, shared understanding of goals and the ability to be flexible in relation to both teaching and administrative aspects are among the most crucial aspects of good practice in successful partnerships or collaborations between ACE and VET.

Adult and community education (ACE) and vocational education and training (VET) organisations operate effectively within their own sectors to deliver vocational learning at various levels to their students and clients. A number of these organisations are currently working with one another in either formal or informal partnerships to provide a range of courses to clients in both urban and regional settings. The purpose of this research is to investigate the types of good practices that collaborating participants see as both supporting and promoting their partnerships. The study also aims to identify practices which may be counter-productive to the long-term survival of a partnership or collaboration. At the same time, the study examines the ways in which the communities involved in such collaborations are benefiting as a result of them.

This research has resulted in a definitive good practice guide which offers constructive and practical information for organisations and practitioners seeking to repeat these collaborations elsewhere, whether on an informal or formal basis. The research used interviews and site visits to identify key factors and these are set out in Creating effective ACE and VET partnerships: Good practice guide .

The investigation was conducted through a series of telephone interviews and follow-up site visits. In fact, 26 organisations from ACE and VET who are or were involved in partnerships answered a number of questions about their practices and the subsequent outcomes. The telephone interviews were conducted with three partnerships in regional New South Wales, one in regional Queensland, one in urban Western Australia, four across both urban and regional South Australia, two in Tasmania and one in urban and one in regional Victoria.

Further findings came from six partner site visits made by researchers. The site visits were a regional community centre and their partnered regional technical and further education (TAFE) institute in New South Wales, a rural community centre and partner regional TAFE in Victoria, and an urban community centre partnered with a regional TAFE institute in South Australia. In Tasmania we visited a regional suburban community centre and their regional TAFE partner, in Melbourne an urban ACE centre and partner city university, and in Adelaide we visited an urban community centre partnered with an outer urban TAFE.

This research has found evidence to support the proposition that partnerships and collaborations between ACE and VET can promote vocational learning, broaden community capacity and increase lifelong learning skills within a community. This strengthened community environment results from the sharing of knowledge, skills and interests across the range of stakeholders who come together within the collaborative effort of the partnership.

A number of key good practices that underpin successful partnerships were identified, as well as some practices that negatively affect such partnerships. Good communication, shared understanding of goals and the ability to be flexible in relation to both teaching and administration were among the most crucial factors of good practice. For a partnership to succeed, lead personnel were needed within both partnered organisations who were committed to taking the ideas forward beyond the initial stages. Successful partnerships also seemed to be, in general, highly dependent on those lead personnel involved having either instigated the original idea, or being involved in the early discussions and preparations for the partnership. In this context, we also found that partnerships and collaborations benefit in the long term from some form of clearly enunciated, written model of action and requirements at the outset. Such a model should also include a succession plan for when lead personnel move on.

We found that partnerships generally take years, rather than months, to become fully viable and enduring. Again, the lead personnel are a driving force in that viability. Time is also a central factor in allowing the partnership to fully develop, and enable all stakeholders to settle into the relationship. The opportunity to interview personnel in short-term partnerships was limited, but among those interviewed were personnel whose partnership had been unsuccessful. The partnerships deemed successful (those that have been in existence for at least two years or longer) tended to nominate themselves for interviews.

The research also noted that having respect for one another and the various stakeholders in each partnership plays a key role in continuing positive relationships between organisational personnel, whether administrative or teaching staff. Time also played an important part in building this sense of respect. In addition, the research found that partnerships and collaborations were in fact the means by which respect and acknowledgement of others' capabilities and skills could be engendered in situations where organisations had previously been unaware of the skills each could offer.

In successful partnerships, organisations often have quite differing views of what constitutes outcomes for students, but through their collaborative relationship they are able to accommodate these disparate ideas. For example, when comparing the data between partners, ACE personnel indicated that they place more importance on intrinsic community benefits and their ability to help disadvantaged learners where such opportunities have arisen from successful collaborative efforts. On the other hand, VET personnel place greater emphasis on numbers of completions and learners articulating into TAFE as a successful outcome. Such differing emphases would superficially seem to indicate that these views arise from incompatible ideological outlooks towards learning, its delivery and therefore its outcomes. However, despite these apparent differences, we found that personnel from both ACE and VET gave similar indications regarding the importance of providing beneficial outcomes for students, the community, and raising their own organisation's profile to attract new business.

This research identified a number of factors which partnership personnel see as working against a sound partnership. A lack of knowledge about each other's operations-including organisational abilities, teaching styles, skill levels and student cohort-can cause initial concern for both sides of a partnership during the development stages. Although the successful partnerships are able to work through their differences in outlook, in some cases interviewees found that these concerns were not addressed well enough to ensure the continuity of a partnership. We were advised of cases where unrealistic goals had been set for both learners and educators, which had doomed the partnership to failure. Similarly, the respondents suggested that competition for students and resources had led to disagreements, as had inadequate staffing or educators who were not fully aware of the necessities of working cooperatively with other organisations. The fact that each organisation had different administrative requirements also impacted negatively on stakeholder attitudes and, in turn, on partnership operations. The difficulty of working within the two different bureaucracies and two types of teaching organisations was also noted as problematic. Although successful partnerships have managed to overcome these differences, they remain a challenge for all practitioners and administrators.

The primary data for these research findings arise from interviews collected from participant organisations which chose to take part. As a consequence, results are not necessarily conclusive for all ACE-VET organisations involved in partnerships or collaborations.