Description
Reforms to Australia's vocational education and training (VET) sector over the past few years have brought about significant changes to the work of VET staff and the focus of their roles. This publication summarises recent research into the changing roles of VET leaders, managers, teaching and support staff, and the way they work. The role of senior managers is increasingly focused on the external environment and building links with stakeholder organisations. Front-line managers focus on internal business practices and how to modify these to meet new clients' needs. The role of VET teachers is becoming more diverse and team-based. Within these teams, teaching support staff play a critical part. The publication also summarises a range of human resource and professional development issues, identified by VET staff, which need to be tackled to help them work more effectively in the future.
Summary
About the research
- Reforms in VET over the past ten years have had a significant effect on the work of its staff. They now operate in more competitive markets and face increased demands for higher quality and more relevant programs from their various clients. Understanding and keeping up with the changes and working in new and more flexible ways have been major challenges for the VET workforce.
- Senior managers in public VET providers have become more strategic and focus more intensively on the external environment and building stronger links with clients.Their philosophy and personal style have been found to strongly influence their organisation’s culture and response to change.
- Front-line managers in public VET providers focus intensely on internal business and work practices to enable staff to make necessary changes to meet new client demands.
- The core capabilities required of VET leaders and managers have been identified. Business, change management and educational leadership skills need to be enhanced, with professional development linked more strategically to organisational needs and capability.
- VET teachers’ work has expanded and diversified.They work in an increasing range of contexts, including classrooms, workplaces and online.They tend to facilitate learning rather than teach, which requires a more diverse range of knowledge and capabilities. Teachers also work increasingly as part of cross-organisational and multi-disciplinary teams, and with non-teaching staff.
- Significant professional development has facilitated new work practices. However, this has not met all individual or organisational needs. Current VET industrial awards, performance indicators and funding models do not prohibit new approaches to work but they do make it more difficult because they have not kept pace with the new ways practitioners are working, particularly in public VET providers. Identified problems with job design, workload and performance management need to be urgently tackled. Effective solutions to a number of these issues are in use at the local level.These need to be examined and shared more widely to inform better practice.
- Critical knowledge will be lost in the near future as qualified and experienced staff either retire or resign.Thus succession planning has also been identified as an increasingly important consideration.
- The overall lesson from the reform process is that VET providers need to be more actively involved in it.The professionalism of VET practitioners needs to be better recognised and their educational leadership encouraged to help reduce resistance to change and enhance their job satisfaction.
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