The Importance of VET teacher professionalism : an Australian case study

The effectiveness of vocational education and training (VET) systems depends upon their teachers. The teachers are regarded as “dual professionals,” requiring expertise in both their background industry areas and in VET pedagogy itself. This chapter uses Australia as a case study of what happens when the accepted regime of qualifications for VET teachers alters. In Australia full-time VET teachers were, until recently, required to undertake degree level qualifications in VET pedagogy, taught at universities, either before or, more usually, after entering the occupation. The required level has now reduced to the regulatory minimum of a Certificate IV level qualification, taught by training providers not universities, and often provided to their own teachers. The qualification contains only 300 nominal hours of training. It has been recognized as a particularly poorly taught qualification, requiring the introduction of a high degree of regulation and most recently a special compliance framework for training providers wishing to deliver it. In this chapter, the historical path of the decline in VET teacher professionalism in Australia is charted, including research evidence from a national project managed by the author, about the effects of higher-level qualifications on VET teacher practices and quality and teachers’ propensity to engage in professional development. A conceptual model of the attributes of professional VET teachers with regard to qualifications and professional development is presented. The chapter concludes with some recommendations for change and implications for other countries

To engage or not to engage : what can the national VET system offer enterprises?

One of the challenges facing industry in Australia is finding the best way to harness the opportunities offered by the national vocational education and training (VET) system. The VET system with its network of registered training organisations, and infrastructure of Training Packages and the VET Quality Framework, has the potential to assist organisations to develop approaches to training that are truly national in scope and focus. However there are significant barriers to realising this goal. This chapter outlines the architecture of the VET system, and then analyses the issues and challenges that industry faces in its efforts to work with the national training system, and the strategies and practices industry uses in addressing them to meet workforce development needs