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This article examines issues and challenges associated with the provision of effective professional teacher education for vocational education and training in schools (VETiS) teachers. Current minimum levels of qualifications for VETiS teachers are argued to be inadequate for the complexity of preparing senior secondary students for work in the future. VETiS teachers require a deep understanding of education and teaching that, as per their colleagues in schools, is acquired through completing a university-based teacher education program. Faculties of education are urged to enact strategies to recruit students to enter these university-based teacher education programs on the basis of their VET qualification and additional industrial experience. However, these university-based teacher education programs need to be specifically designed and tailored to the needs of these nontraditional higher education students. Evidence is presented from one such program and is used to identify potential features for an effective model of VETiS teacher education.

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This research paper focuses on the provision and teaching of vocational education and training (VET) programs to young people within Victorian secondary schools. The study identifies and discusses the way that VET in schools programs are nuanced as they are made to fit the state system, then with the individual school settings and circumstances. These programs are important in offering a range of relevant and useful programs to a diverse range of senior secondary school students. The study found that when a VET program is provided to students through a secondary school setting in Victoria it will: (1) be made appropriate for students aged 15 to 21; (2) occur as part of one of the two senior secondary school certificates; and (3) often have undergone some modifications to its authenticity with some flow on effect to its reliability and validity due to the limitations and nature of the school-based context. Accordingly, teachers and school administrators are required to be creative in fine-tuning their program provision as they work through issues that arise around costs, quality and effectiveness.

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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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Teacher educators, like other curriculum developers make decisions and choices about what gets included into the programs which they teach. As a teacher educator in the field of [vocational education and training] VET method, I am often asked by stakeholders external to the university to account for what it is we do in our teacher education programs. Meantime my colleagues within the program ask what is it that I want the pre-service secondary teachers to know about VET. Unfortunately though this is all too often then followed up with ‘and you have got one session to do it’. This article provides a brief overview of what we attempt to cover in our Dip Ed Secondary pre-service teacher education program on the topic of VET and VET in schools.

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One of the strategies being advocated in response to climate change is the need to transition to a low carbon economy. Current projections show that within this transition, new jobs will be created, some eliminated and most others subjected to change. This article reports findings from interviews with a selection of 20 participants who are involved in the formation and/or deployment of green skills. The participants were asked about their perceptions of: (1) how jobs are changing in the transition to a green economy; (2) how are adult learners developing and using green skills; and (3) what are some of the main drivers and blockers to the development and use of green skills. The data are presented as vignettes from various positions of supply and demand within the emerging green economy.

The findings of this study report that the organisations and the training providers are motivated to develop and/or deploy green jobs and green skills for a range of different reasons. These include the making of a favourable business case, environmental beliefs about conserving the finite resources of the planet, and for health and wellbeing reasons. Some blockers that have been identified are the initial capital outlay for any changes, and the need to address some inconsistencies that arise over time in the financial arrangements when trying to work out the business case. This has led the designers and contractors working in renewable energy to call for a level playing field with those who provide and utilise finite resources and non-renewable energy. Overall transition to a low carbon and green economy is shown to be supported and occurring with some limited success. However there is a need for further larger scale research into this area of skill formation and deployment.

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This paper briefly reviews historical narratives of ‘hands on’ learning and Industrial Education as presented by Anderson (1926) and Bennett (1926 & 1937). It is suggested that precedents for some of the contemporary debates in curriculum and pedagogy within Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) have deep roots and their seeds and branches can be found in these historical narratives. For example, in recent years there has been discussion around the development and use of training packages. Training packages are text based specifications of vocational qualifications and as such some VET practitioners and researchers have questioned their effectiveness and whether they constitute a new form of curriculum. This paper specifically focuses on three historical attempts at documenting ‘the mysteries of the trade’. Each is presented as a vignette contextualised through significant events of the time. These are, (1) Moxon’s treatise of 1683, ‘The Doctrine of Handy Works’; (2) Diderot’s ‘Encyclopedie’ of 1751, an enlightenment project undertaken in France, that amongst other things documents the trades and industry; and (3) the Russian system of instruction which involves systematic approaches to mechanical instruction in the trades and industry as developed by Della Vos at the Imperial Technical School in Moscow. It is suggested that together these examples stand as ancestors to more contemporary attempts to document trades and occupations as the basis for education and training.

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This paper reports on the early stages of research in progress. It is a research project being funded by the Institute for Social and Environmental Sustainability at Latrobe University to research sustainability, [vocational education and training] VET and the transition to a low carbon economy. With governments at all levels putting in place targets, policies, infrastructure and projects to initiate more sustainable living, this paper identifies and tracks some of the key policies. In the international arena, the United Nations has instigated and facilitated substantial work in these fields. While amongst the policies and plans being put in place at a federal level are the National VET Sector Sustainability Policy and Action Plan 2009-2012, the Green Skills Agreement, and The Green Skills Agreement Implementation Plan 2010-2011. All of these policies are calling for significant changes to be instigated. Jobs are changing in a number of different ways. With some jobs, modifications are occurring to accommodate a shift to more sustainable practices; this is being accompanied by the creation of new jobs in emerging industries, while less sustainable jobs stand to be eliminated. These changes to work and jobs bring skill development within VET to the fore.

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This paper reviews a selection of the policy, curriculum, operational and research literature associated with the recognition of vocational education and training (VET) within the Victorian senior secondary certificates: the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), and the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL). The central tenet of this paper is that VET in Victorian schools serves multiple purposes and in doing so it offers both risks and opportunities. While the outcomes of the Victorian VET programs achieve national recognition, the recognition of these programs for broader educational certification has become diverse and complex. We use statistical participation data to argue that the incorporation of VET into these senior secondary certificates, appeals to students and offers increased options and pathways in the post-compulsory years of schooling. A range of assessment strategies and procedures have been developed to assist in the recognition of VET within these senior secondary school certificates. In particular, scored assessment and its contribution to national tertiary entrance scores is at the centre of the debates over recognition of VET within VCE. Also in this mix for recognising VET within the senior secondary certificates are pre-apprenticeship programs, school-based apprenticeships and traineeships. The operational, procedural and research literature associated with the complexities of the tandem usage of competency-based and scored assessment are reviewed as they apply in the Victorian context. As with the VCE, VET is also incorporated into VCAL programs through the industry specific and work-related skills streams. VET is mandatory within the intermediate and senior levels of VCAL. The paper tries to identify and discuss the complexities in this area of VET provision.

Published abstract.

Available papers from the 11th Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA) Conference are indexed from TD/TNC 92.459 to TD/TNC 92.499 and from TD/TNC 92.701 to TD/TNC 92.716. Show less

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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Our paper is based on our recently published National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) project report ‘Men’s sheds in Australia, learning through community contexts’ (indexed at TD/TNC 89.03), which showed that men’s sheds informally cater for non vocational, social, health, wellbeing and learning needs of mainly older men. We deliberately used unedited transcripts from the NCVER project in the form of narratives or stories to give the men an opportunity to speak for themselves about the benefits of participating in men’s sheds. The paper highlights some of the limitations of the methodology used in the attempt to allow the men themselves to make sense of the benefits they experience and enjoy from participating in men’s sheds as conveyed through their own voices.

Published abstract.

Available papers from the 11th Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA) Conference are indexed from TD/TNC 92.459 to TD/TNC 92.499 and from TD/TNC 92.701 to TD/TNC 92.716. Show less