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In late 2010, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Grampians Region, contracted researchers at the University of Ballarat to undertake a research study aimed at enhancing understanding of the ways in which community - and other relevant factors - might affect and influence secondary school student completions and destinations, with particular emphasis on students from rural areas. The research sought to explore the range of local community factors that may impact on school retention and educational outcomes and aspirations among rural adolescents.

The key objectives for the project were to: (1) Review the national and international literature about community influences (with particular reference to rural settings) on the aspirations, educational achievements and destinations of secondary students; (2) Review the national and international literature on the most effective community programs that can positively influence the aspirations, educational achievements and destinations of secondary students; (3) Identify factors (particularly community factors, including the socio cultural environment) that positively and negatively influence the aspirations, educational and destination outcomes of high school students in the selected towns and regions; (4) Identify the characteristics operating in the rural communities where students perform well in educational achievements and destinations; (5) Recommend programs and strategies for community-based approaches to improved educational achievements and destinations; and (6) Publish findings of this research in refereed journals.

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The author gives some reflections on the Course in Applied Vocational Study Skills (CAVSS) in Victoria, with particular reference to Chisholm Institute of [Technical and Further Education] TAFE. The article begins with some notes on the need for study support and the roll-out of CAVSS. The article concludes with some comments and observations from staff and students. Show less

This paper explores employee participation in three healthcare organisations by focusing on the perspectives of senior managers and employees in a community health service, an emergency department in a large metropolitan health service and a regional hospital in Victoria. We explore their views of employee participation, their experiences of participation in practice, and the facilitators and barriers to participatory practice. We investigate a number of preconditions of participation, identified in earlier research; specifically, management support, union presence, perceived benefit, legislation and policy, and participatory ethos. Findings showed that management determined whether or not there was employee participation within the organisation. Hence we argue that management support is a necessary precondition to the establishment of employee participation, which only occurs where there is a perceived benefit to management. The other preconditions were subordinate to importance of management support. Management support and perceived benefit are the eminent preconditions that determine whether employee participation takes place.

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The Brotherhood of St Laurence’s 2010 Community VCAL (CVCAL) program was tailored for young people aged 15 to 18 who had experienced barriers to education, often leading to expulsion or ‘exiting’ from mainstream schools. Located in Frankston, the program delivered the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning [VCAL] - a Years 11-12 certificate course which combines classroom tuition with vocational training and work placements - in a community setting rather than a school. The evaluation of its inaugural year found that, notwithstanding some challenges, the 2010 BSL-CVCAL program made a significant difference to the lives of most of its students.

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This article examines the challenges facing non-traditional university students - and to a lesser extent their lecturers in 'the stretched academy' - who are increasingly enrolling in university courses in Australia and elsewhere. The article looks at this issue from the perspective of non-traditional students at a regional campus in Victoria. These students include many from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who do not conform to the conventional idea of the Australian university student. Typically, for most of the postwar period, the traditional university student was a recent graduate from high school with good grades and enrolled full-time. Most importantly, such students came predominately from high socio-economic backgrounds that equipped them with the kind of cultural capital that provides a head start in the academic environment. By contrast, non-traditional university students of the last two decades or so are a much more diverse cohort consisting of large numbers of full-fee-paying international students, older, mature-age students studying mainly on a part-time basis by distance education, and increasing numbers of domestic students who only in recent times have aspired to a university education. Many of these latter students are ostensibly full-time but in reality spend more time in paid part-time jobs than they do on campus. These 'student-workers' are the main focus of this article because it is the dual role of the undergraduate as worker and scholar that is of concern to university personnel especially in the context of the widening participation agenda of the federal government. Such students are compelled to support themselves in term-time employment, which inevitably affects their commitment to study and consequently their academic prospects. The article concludes with the suggestion that slogans such as those in the title are misleading if they are not accompanied by financial incentives and a more inclusive curriculum that acknowledges the study-work challenges facing non-traditional university students.

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Community service learning is the name given to the integration of community service into students' courses. Community service learning can be seen as a subset of work-integrated learning. Most universities include service to the community in their mission statements. The purpose of service learning is to help the community while also helping students to gain professional skills that they might need in the future. Industry requires university graduates to be equipped with technical knowledge and also with graduate capabilities/attributes and/or generic skills such as communication, teamwork and problem-solving skills. This paper explores business students' experience of service learning in the community and investigates the attributes that students report they have achieved from their experience. The research argues that service learning can be used to develop the attributes required by university and for industry. The paper describes how the community service learning subject is offered at Australian Catholic University (ACU) in Melbourne, Australia. A content analysis was undertaken of the students' reflective reports in order to determine the skills that the students recorded that they have developed through their experience. The findings provide insight into the perceptions of students regarding their community engagement experience and how this links to the graduate attributes that the university is trying to develop in students. Billett's framework for effective incorporation of work integrated learning has been used to make recommendations regarding the outcome of community service learning at ACU. Overall, the community service was a positive experience for business students, increasing their confidence and their ability to work with others.

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The vocational education and training (VET) sector of Victoria has undergone reforms in recent years driven by a shortage of skilled labour and an increasing recognition of the importance of skills and qualifications in enhancing Australia's future productivity and social outcomes. As part of the reforms, significant changes were made to the fee and funding arrangements for government subsidised training. Within the context of these reforms, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) asked the Essential Services Commission to examine the extent to which the design of the Government's funding mechanisms and fee structures contribute to the objectives of the Victorian training system. The Commission was also asked to examine the efficiency and effectiveness of the Government's funding mechanisms and fee structures, including: student eligibility for subsidies such as rationing mechanisms, concessions and income-contingent loan arrangements; relative funding levels for TAFE institutions and registered training organisations; prescribed minimum and maximum tuition fee levels; the weighted training hour approach based on estimated costs of delivery; the balance between government, student and employer contributions; and funding structures for higher-need learners. This report from the inquiry is in two parts. Volume one, 'Blueprint for change', is a high level strategic overview document that includes a full list of the review recommendations (including a suggested transition path), and identifies nine strategic directions for improving the efficiency of the VET fee and funding model in Victoria. Volume two, 'Technical analysis', contains the technical analysis that underpins the Commission's recommendations, and consists of the following seven chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) The VET sector in Victoria; (3) Objectives: views of stakeholders; (4) Eligibility for a government subsidised training place; (5) Tuition fees; (6) Funding VET delivery; and (7) A more competitive pricing model. Show less

An Expert Panel was established in March 2011 to develop a Gippsland Tertiary Education Plan. This initiative responds to the 2009 Higher Education and Skills report advising on the development of the Victorian Tertiary Education Plan, which confirmed there was an appreciable gap in participation and attainment levels between large parts of Melbourne and regional Victoria. This discussion paper represents the next step in the dialogue on tertiary education provision in Gippsland and presents a number of choices to create more local options that are viable for all students. This will include building on existing partnerships and strengthening articulation arrangements between providers, but it may also involve new arrangements. Through a series of open and targeted sector consultations, the panel will be seeking to meet with interested parties across Gippsland in August 2011. Show less

Education for sustainability (EfS) is education which seeks to achieve sustainability, with a particular focus on cultivating knowledge and skills to making a practical, ongoing difference. It comprises environmental, economic and cultural dimensions of sustainability. Australia has a National Action Plan for EfS. For Victoria's universities, it represents a step beyond operational sustainability (e.g. 'campus greening') initiatives and education about sustainability; many advocates view it as something that can be imbued through all educational activities. Many enthusiastic environmentalists have pioneered EfS in Australian universities; the challenge now is to make it mainstream and accessible to newcomers to sustainability as an educational value. This report provides an account of the state of development of EfS in Victoria's universities and is intended to inform government and other agencies and, especially, policy making within universities.

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This paper is a research, work-in-progress, account of stakeholder valuing of an award winning vocational education and training (VET) initiative. The research is undertaken against a background that institutional ethnography inquiry reveals an Australian VET system which focuses upon strengthening human capital with seemingly little declared regard for building social capital as defined in this paper; and, in this paper, embracing social cohesion strengthened through education. In comparison, the Deaf Community for whom the initiative was developed and delivered is highly social capital orientated. In September 2010, the delivery of the TAA40104 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) won the 2010 Victorian Training Initiative of the Year Award and was subsequently a finalist in the 2010 National Training Awards. As in any two languages, Auslan and English do not have a one to one equivalence for lexical terms for many concepts; accordingly, a great deal of customisation was required and presented a considerable challenge in strengthening both human and social capital attributes of the learners. The juxtaposition of a seemingly VET human capital orientated entity and a seemingly Deaf Community social capital orientated entity, yielding a VET system award winning outcome, gives hope that VET in Australia may turn away from what is perceived as a narrowing focus upon training to the exclusion of education – the ‘E’ part of VET having declined almost to the point of invisibility. It is this prospect of VET in Australia returning to balance between valuing more readily measured human capital outcomes and less easily measured social capital strengthening which gives rise to an Activity Theory informed pursuit of the research question – What is the human/social capital boundary crossing tool which has acted to bring about this partnership between the Australian VET system and the Deaf community? And taking a wider view, there is the prospect that the boundary crossing tool may have a generic utility across the Australian VET system and beyond in cultures of similar community tradition. In particular, the connection to lifelong learning invites consideration of the place of the boundary crossing tool (not the ‘why’ or the ‘what’ but the ‘how’) in the European Community Lifelong Learning Programme. As a broadening of relevance consideration the question is put - Is European Union VET attention already, knowingly, pursuing both human and social capital outcomes as it pursues economic strengthening and social cohesion within – and between – member states? It is also pertinent to the next phase of our enquiry – the search for the tool – that the Centre of Excellence was also acknowledged by winning the Victorian VET Client Service/Support Excellence Award. When coupled with the training program award, this is an outstanding multiple VET acknowledgement of value beyond just the job focus. It adds to the worth of pursuing the research question.

Published abstract.

Other papers in this series addressing VET and social capital are available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 111.640 and TD/TNC 131.271. Show less