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This research examines explicit and implicit understandings of the training plan in apprenticeship contracts, and the potential impact of mismatched expectations on completion rates. In order to examine the effects of mismatched understandings, a small research enquiry of four case studies was conducted with participants from the food trades industries. Apprentices, employers, and trainers were all interviewed for their knowledge and understandings of the apprenticeship training agreement or training plan. The research findings show that the apprentices had poorly informed understandings of both the explicit conditions for training set out in their training plan and the implied understandings associated with the training between the three signatory parties. These misunderstandings resulted in three of the four participants considering leaving their apprenticeships.

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This is a major field-based study for National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre by a research team from the University of Ballarat. It is an exploration of the benefits of older men's (age 50+) learning through participation in community settings other than those understood as having a vocational or educational dimension. It is based on an analysis of extensive audio-recorded and transcribed interviews and surveys in 48 organisations in six diverse sites across three Australian states. The six community organisation types explored were: adult and community education; sporting; religious, Indigenous and cultural; voluntary fire and emergency services; age-related and disability; and men’s special interest organisations. The research provides new evidence of the acute need for organisations providing adult learning in community settings to consider how to engage more men and to promote older men's wellbeing more effectively.

Excerpt from publication.

A shorter report based on this study is indexed at TD/TNC 99.876. Show less

This is a major field-based study for the Western Australia Department of Education and Training by a research team from the University of Ballarat. It is an exploration of the benefits of men’s learning through participation in community settings other than those understood as having a vocational or educational dimension. It is based on an analysis of extensive audio-recorded and transcribed interviews and surveys in 36 organisations in six diverse sites across Western Australia. The six community organisation types explored were: adult and community education; sporting; religious, Indigenous and cultural; voluntary fire and emergency services; age-related and disability; and men’s special interest organisations. The research confirms and explores the important role that all community organisations examined play, in providing contexts in which all aspects of lifelong and lifewide learning can be practiced and enhanced for, by and with men as active participants.

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This paper reports analysis and discussion on the role of mentoring and pastoral care as mechanisms in lifting apprenticeship participation and completion rates within the Australian framework of apprenticeship training. Australian apprenticeship completion rates have reached historically low levels, with over 47.6 per cent of apprentices leaving their training before completing (NCVER, 2015). As a result, training colleges are customising their support arrangements with the purpose of engaging, supporting and retaining their apprenticeship enrolments. Non-completions have fiscal and social impacts (Lamb & Huo, 2017). It is argued that these impacts can be mitigated through giving apprentices access to mentoring that is inside the trade work but outside their employment relationship. This research study looks at one of Australia's largest training college providers, with a cohort of over 3600 apprentice enrolments (2017) in varying trades. It examines a variety of interventions employed to lift apprenticeship retention numbers, but most specifically, the use of mentoring.

It is envisaged that all apprentices need assistance to negotiate difficulties, build resilience, and learn from issues and complications that arise at some time during the course of their apprenticeship. It is suggested that Trade school is connected to the general work practices of the trade and yet trade school and the trade teachers are also separate from and provide a buffer space for the apprentice from their particular workplace. It is argued that this buffer means that teachers are slightly removed from the particulars of workplace relations but are well placed to gain insight about the generalities that are aggregated from hearing the experiences of a wide range and number of students. This separation from the employment relationship along with a more general commitment to their trade has the potential for the teachers to provide advice and some forms of pastoral care to the apprentices in their trade classes. Especially if this advice and assistance might support an apprentice to navigate difficulties but stay in the trade.

In this paper, some 180 cases are examined and reported on. Important findings from the research show that 87 per cent of students were able to negotiate a significant hurdle with the assistance of individualized pastoral care arrangements. Key areas of interest to the research are: the barriers faced by apprentices; the types and intensity of support they require; the changing role of apprenticeship training colleges; and the contribution of increased pastoral care in the lifting of completion rates.

Published abstract.

The volume from which this paper is taken is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 131.484. Show less

This report investigates the attitudes that shape post-school education and training decisions and choices for peri-urban, regional and rural students and their families. The authors conclude that the longer-term economic and employment benefits of further education, particularly higher education, are perceived by many of the research participants as reducing and becoming less significant and more delayed compared to the perceived short-term advantages of direct entry to work.

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A range of Australian demographic, education, training, health and wellbeing data confirm that men are experiencing a range of dilemmas as they age, particularly after retirement. Community-run men’s sheds have recently developed and proliferated, mainly across parts of southern Australia and with higher proportions of older men not in work. This research study examines their role as a place in the lives of older men. It examines the informal skill development that takes place for older men in men’s sheds: dedicated men’s programs and spaces in community organisations in Australia. It examines the circumstances and attitudes that have been shown to bring otherwise disengaged older men (defined as age 45+) to learning. In doing so, it closely examines the rationales, pedagogies, experiences and outcomes of participants in men’s sheds. These spaces and programs form a growing part of local government, community services and welfare provision for older men at a neighbourhood and suburb level in towns and local communities. The research confirms for the first time, using compelling and rigorously collected data from participants, the critical value of community-based men’s sheds in Australia to older men’s wellbeing: particularly to their health, social enjoyment, ongoing learning capacity and ability to contribute to the community. Show less