This document is an analysis of how policy has interacted with vocational education and training (VET) in Australia, with a particular focus on the period since the 1980s.
A stocktake of issues and activities in vocational education and training in schools through the perspectives of the published literature and policy documentation between 1997 and 2003 is the subject of this report. It identifies progress made and concludes that vocational programs in schools are meeting expectations and have achieved a legitimate place in the school curriculum, but that several implementation issues remain.
This review of vocational education in schools notes the challenge that the introduction of vocational education presents to a school system which has, until now, largely confined itself to delivering general academic subjects.