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This study analyses how one Victorian regional [Technical and Further Education] TAFE Institute is working towards understanding and contributing to skill formation for the green economy. While we already know that the provision of vocational education and training in regional areas contributes to regional innovation and development, (Kilpatrick, Johns and Rosenblatt, 2000; Gelade and Fox, 2008; Kearns, Bowman and Garlick, 2008; TAFE Directors Australia, 2011), this research provides a case study of how this is occurring with regard to the development of green skills. The study presents the perceptions and understandings of participants drawn from four different cohorts. These cohorts are (1) key players in the community/industry representatives, (2) TAFE managers, (3) TAFE teachers, and (4) TAFE students. The study found that work and jobs are changing to become more sustainable though investment in large scale alternative energy generation while often lauded had failed to reach fruition. Likewise, [vocational education and training] VET training programs are also changing with teachers and students contributing to the complex arrangements around the supply and demand for green skills. The teachers at this regional TAFE who participated in the study reported that they were well supported in accessing and participating in relevant sustainability-related professional development. Finally, numerous examples were evident throughout the study of how the work performed by staff at this TAFE institute was contributing towards regional and community development.

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This paper questions the nature of reform advocated by the present changes to the workplace and its culture, and argues that competency-based training (CBT) is out of alignment with the construction of an agenda for workplace reform that should be a collaborative action. CBT may be viewed as aligning with the interests of the status quo and inappropriate to the interests of working people. Show less

This paper argues that competency based training (CBT) as the dominant approach to reform in curriculum and pedagogy is contrary to the interests of working people and labour. The paper provides five examples representing a selection of different industries, different subject areas and different levels of studies across occupations.

The paper argues that workers and educators are not resources to be manipulated in accordance with employer and market interests. Rather, they are active agents who must determine the collective purposes of their society. As a result, curriculums and training methods must be designed to reflect these intentions. Rather than focus on the reform of workers, this paper argues that reforms for workers must set the agenda. Show less

In this paper, the author first signals the intention of his institution, Victoria University of Technology, to develop further its research profile in the vocational education and training (VET) field. Secondly, he outlines some concerns regarding research in VET, under the following headings: (1) lack of autonomy; (2) lack of critique; (3) dominant masculine presence; (4) misuse of ‘interpretive flexibility’. Thirdly, the paper gives information about the formation of a new nationally based professional association for those interested in the more socially critical aspects of adult and work-related education, to be known as the National Adult Education Coalition. Finally, he provides an overview of three publications currently at varying stages of production. The focus of all three is the development of curriculum for work-related learning, and two are specifically about competency-based training. Show less

These 12 papers are part of the study materials for the one-semester distance education unit, Project Development Plan 2, in the Open Campus Program at Deakin University (Australia). They examine the breadth and depth of the actions and debates around the social construction of skill and the critical role played by the concept of skill in the gendering of the workplace. An introduction from Elaine Butler and Mike Brown provides an overview of the papers. The first two papers illustrate the broad picture: 'Con-testing skill: women, skill and training in Australia' by Elaine Butler and Helen Connole, locates contemporary studies of women and skill within the discourses of education and training and the Australian microeconomic reform agenda; 'The gendering of skill and vocationalism in twentieth-century Australian education' by Jill Blackmore, provides an historical base for the contemporary discourse as well as a framework for future critique.

Other papers are as follows: 'What's in a word: recognition of women's skills in workplace change' by Cate Poynton and Kim Lazenby, offers a precis of a research project that renames the skills of women workers in clerical occupations; 'From industry to enterprise: issues for women workers around award and industry restructuring' by Kim Windsor, investigates the potential for 'women's' industries to influence award and industry restructuring processes; 'Women and skill formation' by Ann Byrne, draws on Labour Research Center research, with a focus on skill identification issues, classifications, and methodologies; 'Women and award restructuring in local government' by Mira Robertson, considers implications for women workers within the industry; 'The transport industry: another challenge for women' by Robyn Francis, juxtaposes the male-dominated transport industry and its inherent challenges against 'feminized' industries; 'Women's skills in community services' by Susan Kenna, contends that a fundamental shift is required in the way caring occupations are valued; 'Community Service Workers and pay equity' by Sara Charlesworth, pursues issues of valuing service work and the skills inherent in such work; 'Skill and skill formation for women workers: a case study of the hospitality industry' by Sue Harper, reports on a project that investigated women working in the hospitality industry in jobs usually viewed as unskilled or semiskilled; 'Training for the computerized office: crisis or opportunity?' by Rosemary J. Harris, is a personal perspective of one female worker's experiences; 'The ideology of skill and gender: a selective review of the literature' by Cathy Emery, is a review of the literature around the ideology and construct of skill. Show less

The Gen Green 3 study, a partnership between La Trobe University and WorldSkills Australia captured apprentices' and trainees' experiences of skills and sustainability in workplaces and courses in 2012, building on the Gen Green 2008 and 2010 surveys. The research indicated a step change in apprentices' and trainees' experience of skills for sustainability in work and training between 2008 and 2010, but only minor changes in the experience of these skills at work and in training from 2010 to 2013. Cost was consistently indicated as the most widely experienced barrier to practicing these skills at work and the main driver for gaining these skills was a personal interesting sustainability, an interest that remained consistently high over the three surveys.

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This paper provides insight into the attitudes and perceptions of young people who are studying, or who are recent graduates of [vocational education and training] VET programs to identify and discuss issues and trends emerging from research into the development of 'skills for sustainability'. Located in the wake of the implementation of the Green Skills Agreement (Council of Australian Governments 2010), this paper brings together findings from recent research undertaken separately by these two researchers. The study by Sack (2012) was conducted under the auspices of the Dusseldorp Skills Forum and involves review and analysis of the 2008 and 2011 Gen Green surveys of Australian WorldSkills competitors. These two surveys have been analysed separately and more recently together, to provide a longitudinal snapshot of the issues and trends as depicted by young people in VET. The 2011 survey shows that some important environmental, social and economic skills are largely absent from courses and workplaces, suggesting scope for a broader revision of public policy around skills for sustainability in the future. Following a key finding from these two surveys that recognises technical and further education (TAFE) as the main source of learning about sustainability skills, this paper includes a slice drawn through the data in a recent study by Brown (2012) involving semi-structured interviews with 19 TAFE students located in three different TAFE institutes and one recent VET graduate. While far from universal, these TAFE students reported changes being implemented into both their work roles and their courses of study.

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The implementation of the Green Skills Agreement ratified by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 2010 provides the national policy context for this analysis of skills for sustainability. Data from three different but complementary studies provide powerful insight into the attitudes and perceptions of young people who are studying, or are recent graduates of, Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs. [The authors] argue that the voices of the young people who participate as students are largely absent from analysis and policy-making, despite policy rhetoric about a demand driven Australian tertiary education sector responsive to consumer (student) interest and need. The combination of these three studies contributes to an improved understanding of what these young adults think and are learning with regard to skills for sustainability in their VET courses and in their workplaces.

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