Innovation, Skill Needs and Training in a Rural Community

Abstract

Difficult challenges face the Gannawarra Shire in northern Victoria, including competing increasingly in global markets, environmental degradation and changing consumer preferences. Education, training and skill development are one way of addressing the challenges. A survey of 68 enterprises (distinguishing between growing, consolidating and declining enterprises) suggested, inter alia, that innovation is an essential element in Gannawarra’s response to the challenges it faces and that enterprises requiring more training differ significantly from those requiring different types of education and training. The ‘story’ of Gannawarra’s challenges and its efforts to address them provide insights which are likely to be useful elsewhere.

Keywords:

• Innovation
• skill needs
• enterprises
• education and training providers
• regions

Notes

1. See www.doi.vic.gov.au.

2. See www.abs.gov.au.

3. See www.gannawarra.vic.gov.au.

4. See www.abs.gov.au; also, note that there have been changes in industry classifications by the ABS which make precise comparisons between the 1991, 1996 and 2001 Census results difficult.

5. Property and Business Services was the only one of these five industry groups in which employment declined between 1996 and 2001.

6. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has conducted Innovation surveys in 1993–94, 1996–97 (manufacturing and mining only) and 2003. However, the latest survey does not include agriculture, government administration and defence, education or health and community services; it excluded businesses with less than five employees; and it did not collect information concerning the education and training needs of enterprises or how they meet them. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Innovation in Australian Business, Catalogue 8158.0, Canberra, February 2005.

7. For a more detailed discussion see Chris Selby Smith and Fran Ferrier, Regional Development, Innovation, Skill Needs and Training: A Pilot Study in the Shire of Gannawarra, Victoria, Working Paper No. 55, Monash University–ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training, Monash University, Melbourne, 2004.

8. www.newmediterranean.com.au.

9. www.gannawarra.vic.gov.au.

10. Other information about the provision of education and training, and about participation in it, are collected by Local Learning and Employment Networks (LLENs) (www.llen.vic.gov.au). Gannawarra does not have its own LLEN, but sections of the Shire are included within the Murray Mallee LLEN and the Campaspe Cohuna LLEN respectively. The LLEN data support the conclusion from the Australian Bureau of Statistics data that substantially lower proportions of the population in this region hold qualifications than is the case for Victoria as a whole.

11. For more detailed information see Selby Smith and Ferrier, op. cit.

12. Full copy at Attachment 2 of F. Ferrier and C. Selby Smith, Regional Development, Skill Needs and Education and Training Provision, Report to the Australian National Training Authority on Project 2003–5, Monash University–ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training, Monash University, Melbourne, September 2003.

13. For further discussion see Ibid.

14. G. Hawke, Patterns of ‘Non‐standard’ Employment: The Differing Responses of Industry Sectors, Working Paper No. 02–05, Research Centre on Vocational Education and Training, University of Technology, Sydney, 2002.

15. Western Australian Department of Training and Employment, Future Vocational Education and Training Needs of the Great Southern Region, 2000 (http://www.training.wa.gov.au/subsites/stsweb/regions/greatsouthern/reports/GtSRegReport.pdf).

16. C. Selby Smith, F. Ferrier, G. Burke, K. Schofield, M. Long and C. Shah, Lifelong Learning and the World of Work: CEET’s Surveys for the ACCI, ACTU and ANTA, Monash University–ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training, Monash University, Melbourne, 2002.

17. Eleven enterprises employed staff with qualifications other than those from TAFE or a university. These were generally industry or enterprise‐specific qualifications. They included specialist courses on chemicals for the dairy industry (20% of the staff in one enterprise), IT courses (45% of the staff in another enterprise) and nursing qualifications (50% of those employed in one enterprise).

18. For example, see C. Selby Smith, G. Hawke, R. McDonald and J. Selby Smith, The Impact of Research on VET Decision‐Making, National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Adelaide, 1998; and C. Selby Smith (ed.), The Impact of R&D on VET Decision‐Making: A Range of Case Studies, NCVER, Adelaide, 1999.

19. For a more detailed discussion of LLEN’s see Appendix I in Ferrier and Selby Smith, op. cit.