Student voice in ‘skills for sustainability’: A missing component from the demand side of Australian Vocational Education and Training

Abstract

The implementation of the Green Skills Agreement ratified by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 2010 provides the national policy context for this analysis of skills for sustainability. Data from three different but complementary studies provide powerful insight into the attitudes and perceptions of young people who are studying, or are recent graduates of, Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs. We argue that the voices of the young people who participate as students are largely absent from analysis and policy-making, despite policy rhetoric about a demand driven Australian tertiary education sector responsive to consumer (student) interest and need. The combination of these three studies contributes to an improved understanding of what these young adults think and are learning with regard to skills for sustainability in their VET courses and in their workplaces. Most notably, these VET students reported that increasingly changes around skills for sustainability are being implemented into both their work roles and their courses of study.

Keywords:

• skills for sustainability
• demand side
• youth voice
• green skills
• vocational skills
• students