The future of Australian vocational education qualifications depends on a new social settlement

Abstract

This article argues that the current social settlement underpinning vocational education and training (VET) in Australia is fractured. The current settlement is low trust and consists of qualifications based on competency-based training models of curriculum and competitive markets. The result is narrow qualifications that do not prepare people for jobs associated with the qualifications, and the decimation of technical and further education (TAFE) institutes which are the public providers of VET. The article develops a conceptual framework by integrating various literatures that are broadly consistent with institutionalist theories, including the Varieties of Capitalism literature, Raffe’s and colleagues model of intrinsic and institutional logics, and literatures on skills ecosystems and educational and labour market transitions. This analysis shows why VET has such a low status in Anglophone liberal market economies. A new social settlement is needed that recognises the diverse purposes played by VET qualifications, underpinned by a differentiated model of VET qualifications that does not tie the outcomes of learning so tightly to particular occupations. Such a model would recognise that some qualifications will have tighter links to occupations than others.

Keywords:

• vocational education and training
• social settlement
• competency-based training
• labour market

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was first presented at the Symposium on Vocational Qualifications organised by the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance at the University of Oxford on 7 February 2013. I would like to acknowledge the helpful and constructive feedback provided by the two anonymous reviewers and the journal’s editor, which have helped me to revise this article.

Additional information

Funding

This article draws from a number of research projects. The first was funded by the NSW Board of Vocational Education and Training entitled Rethinking skills in vocational education and training: from competencies to capabilities (see Wheelahan and Moodie 2011). The most substantive contribution to this article is from the second project, which is a three-year project funded by the National Centre of Vocational Education Research entitled Vocations: the link between post-compulsory education and the labour market. The section in this article on transition systems and their logics substantially draws from Wheelahan, Moodie, and Buchanan (2012). Of course, the ideas expressed in this article are not attributable to either funding body.