Asking difficult (feminist) questions: the case of ‘disappearing’ women and policy problematics in Australian VET

Abstract

Since the establishment of Australia’s first national vocational education and training (VET) system, policy that centres women has diminished, to a present‐day national scenario in where ‘woman’ is all but unspeakable in national VET policy forums. This article provides a contextualisation and partial tracking of this erasure, before juxtaposing the present problematic positioning of women with findings from research conducted over the last two to three years. It confirms that a process of re‐traditionalisation in gender roles is being enacted through enmeshing policy shifts, supported by the complicity of contemporary education policies and practice. Given the location of VET at the nexus of work, welfare and education policies, there is an ongoing need to advocate for gender‐sensitive policy initiatives with the potential to cross sectoral and institutional boundaries of education and training, industrial relations, labour force and welfare portfolios. Moreover, it is time to think hard about how to speak ‘woman’ and so do gender equity policy work in VET that centres ‘women’.

Notes

1. In very recent times, the acronym VET has quietly shifted to that of VTE: vocational and technical education. The implications of this are of concern. VTE is used on the official Australian government website for VET/VTE, through the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). Similarly, it is the nomenclature used on the Minister’s home page. Information and initiatives in relation to ‘skills’ are badged with male faces (five out of seven images); projects are packaged as ‘toolboxes’. Publications with a specific focus on women are now difficult to access in the public domain. Those that remain accessible and cover various sectors of education, including higher education, can be accessed through the Department's website: http://www.dest.gov.au. A search for ‘gender’ will lead one to the school‐based (compulsory) education sector, and to gender equity.

2. We were unsuccessful in our attempts to have the complete bibliography of all the relevant works located (over 250) published.

3. According to Yeatman (1990, p. 464) ‘the term femocrat [is] an Australian neologism invented to refer to a feminist bureaucrat’.

4. See, for example, Ailwood (2003).

5. The seven themes are: globalisation and change; social, cultural and demographic changes; policies, politics and VET; marketisation of VET; economic and social policies and practices for VET; gender issues in VET; and curriculum, pedagogies and practices in VET.

6. At one of the first consultative meetings chaired by the then CEO of the new Australian National Training Authority, representatives of ‘equity groups’ were told that the order was ‘first to get the system and structures right, in place, and then equity would be done’.

7. This recentralising shift, and the ‘new’ VET system, are explained by the Department of Education, Science and Training on their website as follows:

The National Training System. From 1 July 2005, the functions of the Australian National Training Authority will transfer to the Department of Education, Science and Training. This provides a structure to build on successes to date and ensure that the national training system continues to improve—poviding the skilled people required by industry to maintain Australia’s strong economic growth. Our goal is to ensure that in the future, Australia’s training system will be even more responsive to the ever‐changing needs of industry. The training system will continue to build its reputation with young Australians, broadening their options after school. It will attract mature aged Australians back to study, and provide them with specialised skills, and pathways to new careers.

8. http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/training_skills/default.htm

9. Fraser describes the postsocialist condition thus:

What then, is the ‘postsocialist’ condition? Scarcely a definitive negative verdict on the relevance and viability of socialist ideals, it is, rather, a skeptical mood or structure of feeling that marks the post‐1989 state of the left. Fraught with a sense of ‘the morning after’, this mood expresses authentic doubts bound to genuine opacities concerning historical possibilities for progressive social change. Yet it is laced with ideological elements, which are difficult to disentangle and name. (Fraser, 1997, p. 1)

10. Bowman (2004).

11. ‘User choice’ is described by Anderson (2006, pp. 7–8) thus: ‘employers and their apprentices and trainees are able to choose their training provider and course elements …. Individual learners and enterprises … are expected to pay more for the VET programs and services, or “VET products” they use’ (emphasis added).

12. This reduction does not include funding directed to the schools sector for VET in schools (VIS) programmes.

13. TAFE is an acronym for ‘technical and further education’, used here to mean all institutions, the sector as a whole, and the actual organisations that are the national public providers of VET, as well as a plethora of other adult education programmes and support services, including commercial activities.

14. A recent survey of employers carried out by the Australian Industry Group (AIG/Allen Consulting, 2006) found that the inability to recruit staff with the right skills mix was for them the most important aspect of the current skills shortage.

15. See Peetz (2006, 2005).

16. See, for example, the special issue of Journal of Australian Political Economy (2006), Vol. 56 (http://www.jape.org/index.htm).

17. See Security4Women for details of research into ‘welfare to work’ (What women want) and WorkChoices (http://www.security4women.com).

18. The new National Skills Industry Committee provides strategic advice to the VET Ministerial Council on workforce planning, skill development and training issues and priorities.

19. Security4Women (S4W) is one of four secretariats established to report on women’s issues to the Federal government’s Office for Women (OFW). It was hoped that the research could also include women from minority groups, such as women with disabilities. However, due to funding restrictions, this was not possible at the time.

20. Women in Adult and Vocational Education (http://www.wave.com.au) was commissioned to coordinate this research for S4W.

21. Research into two groups (women in micro‐ and small business, and women returning to work and retraining) was conducted by Job Tactics in Western Australia. Final reports are in progress, and are intended to be available on the S4W website in late 2006.

22. See Taylor, 2005b.

23. Of his research sample, Zeller Turner (2006) found that:

•	87% of respondents intended to commence paid work in the future.
•	55% of respondents did not have information on job availability in their choice of career area.
•	75% did not have information on or knowledge of pay rates in their choice of career area.
•	61.4% of respondents did not have access to careers counselling.
•	70% of the women planned to do future study.

24. See, for example, Kempnich et al., 1999; Billett et al., 2003; Walker, 2004.

25. Challenges identified here include locational disadvantage, limited public access to computers and other basic technologies, English not being a first language and low levels of English literacy and numeracy, and the difficulty for Aboriginal communities to access secondary education and post‐school transitional education opportunities for young people (Lawrence, 2005, pp. 24–25).

26. A ‘baby bonus’ was introduced by the Australian Treasurer, P. Costello, as an incentive to increase falling birth rates, for births 2001–2004, as a refundable tax‐offset or a non‐taxable ‘bonus’. This incentive has been re‐designed as the Maternity Payment, that now stands at $4,000 per new baby. This overt persuasion for women to have more babies is illustrated well by the following:

In the May 2004 Budget [the Treasurer] encouraged people to have ‘One for mum, one for dad, and one for the country’. (Costello, 2006)

27. See for example the $19.4 million programme ‘Success for boys’ (http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/key_issues/boys_education/success_for_boys.htm).