Re-humanization of vocational education and training in Australia

ABSTRACT

Australia is restricted by the academic, social and administrative mechanisms of financialization. Exaggerated critiques about the adequacy of learner-centered approaches to education have been used to support a retrogressive shift from curriculum informed by contemporary educational theories, towards curriculum informed by management theories based on the dehumanizing educational theory of behaviourism. I therefore suggest a return to pre-1987 learning-centered educational theories, which include face-to-face relations, compassion and civility. This call is not new, but it has been largely ignored by powerful agents in society: politicians, and regulatory-body representatives. It is therefore necessary to embark on an alternative approach to agential change. In this case, I appeal not to the powerful agents, but to all of us involved in VET. Since VET subsists on our activities, that is, since we daily reproduce it with our activities, it should be possible for us to withdraw those activities that reproduce the marketized approach to VET.

KEYWORDS:

• Marketization of education
• vocational education
• Transformational Model of Social Activity
• explanatory critique
• critical realism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Cheryl Livock is a director of Integrity Education and Research, a boutique research company. Her past experience has been as a researcher, senior lecturer, teacher in both school and vocational training environments.

ORCID

Cheryl Livock http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9269-6989

Notes

1. COAG is the peak intergovernmental forum in Australia, chaired by the prime minister and including all state premiers, territory chief ministers and Australian local government association representative.