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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 paper looks at the development of green skills in a Regional TAFE Institute. The study follows the implementation of the Green Skills Agreement and explores the perceptions of stakeholders and participants about how jobs are changing, the demand for green skills along with possible future directions, inclusion of learning about sustainability and green skills within [vocational education and training] VET programs, and access to appropriately aligned professional development for TAFE teachers and managers. The paper reports on data collected through interviews with four TAFE managers, five TAFE teachers, seven TAFE students, and four industry and/or community representatives.

Stakeholders in green industries are reporting that their economic viability tends to be closely tied to government subsidies, and some are expressing some frustration at the promises of businesses and government to develop a large scale solar industry. However, the domestic solar industry continues to grow. TAFE managers and teachers report seeing more sustainability-orientated content being included in their courses. TAFE staff also report positively on receiving access to associated professional development as the senior management at this Institute appear to be supporting the development of TAFE staff to teach green skills. The students interviewed for this research were studying Electrotechnology and Land and Conservation Management. Both groups reported seeing changes being implemented in their workplaces, their courses of study and the community. The students interviewed tended to be very knowledgeable and interested in the changes they were seeing.

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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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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

This paper reviews ideas and concepts that provide a framework for facilitating the work-related learning of adult educators. The site of the study is the 'higher degrees (by project) research program' at a Victorian dual sector university. This paper assumes that there are concepts from within adult education that can and have been used in this program. The participants are adult educators who mainly work in the VET sector, and work-based practitioners involved in organisational learning and change projects. The discussion includes 'conceptions of work-related learning', 'conceptions of practice', 'communities of practice', and 'practices and processes of practitioner research'. Show less

This paper examines the concept of practitioner research, a kind of collaborative research between academics and vocational education and training (VET) practitioners in the Australian VET sector. The paper describes the types of practitioner research that have been developed, and the reasons behind the re-emergence of interest in this research. It explains the seven conceptions of practice that are frequently used as frameworks in post-graduate research studies of educational practice within VET, and outlines some areas of research currently being undertaken at the post-graduate level at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

The collected conference papers are indexed at TD/TNC 76.451 and TD/TNC 76.452. Selected individual papers are indexed from TD/TNC 76.453 to TD/TNC 76.480. Show less

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 study investigates the professional preparation of teachers working in vocational education and training (VET) programs in Australian secondary schools. It also investigates the similarities and differences and the enablers and blockers that occur across the various states and territories in their approaches to providing teacher education for VET in Schools (VETiS) teachers. The research focuses on the supply-side of university-based VET teacher education programs and offers a stocktake of the VET method area offerings that are available (and not available) for pre-service teachers in Australia.

Key messages from the report are that: (1) there are concerns regarding the efficacy and expertise of VETiS teachers; (2) the requirement for VETiS teachers to have a teaching degree in order to be able to teach in schools has been removed; accordingly, they are no longer required to gain full teacher registration; (3) some universities that have taught VET as a method area in the past to pre-service teachers have discontinued the offering; (4) demand by pre-service teachers within current models of teacher education to undertake VET as a method area is low and has made it an unviable offering for many universities; and (5) VET as a method area is usually low on the list of university subject offerings for pre-service teachers; with about one in eight of all secondary school students doing VETiS, maybe there should be a subject within all secondary teacher education programs that teaches pre-service teachers about VETiS.

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Informal learning has often been seen as formal learning's 'poor cousin'. Our paper explores and discusses new and different ways of thinking about defining, valuing and researching the breadth and importance of informal learning in diverse national and cultural contexts. This includes a consideration of the power relations that can act to devalue informal learning. It is underpinned by a recognition that not only do a relatively small proportion of adults currently engage in formal learning, but those who do tend already to be dedicated and successful lifelong learners. It leads to a discussion about how informal learning might be framed as part of the solution to adult exclusion, seen to be aggravated by unnecessary adult educational hierarchies, accreditation, assessment and formality.

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