Vocational education and training (VET), like all educational sectors, comprises a number of different elements that are configured in ever-changing ways to make up a system. These elements include, for example, goals, learners, teachers, programs, institutions and delivery – all enveloped within a context that includes funding regimes, governmental policies and reforms, and regulatory mechanisms. VET is increasingly becoming recognised as very important to governments, as it is linked intimately with governments’ agendas relating to their economies, skill formation processes, labour markets and social imperatives. So when governments or contexts change, so often do their VET systems, arguably more so than in other educational sectors. Because governments have traditionally placed great expectations on their VET systems, there are often high levels of government intervention in VET provision.
The six papers in this issue of the journal sharpen their lenses on a number of these elements and highlight key issues within them. Five focus on students (Choy et al.; Elsey et al.; Ryan et al.; Meyers; Zulch et al.); one on educators (Maurice-Takerei); three on work-based learning arrangements (Choy et al.; Elsey et al.; Zulch et al.); three on programs (Elsey et al.; Ryan et al.; Zulch et al.); and two on policy reforms (Meyers; Ryan et al.).
A perennial issue in VET is the inter-relationship between learning in the educational institution and learning in the industry workplace. Much research over the past 20 years has concentrated on this issue, hitherto relatively neglected as a research arena. Sarojni Choy and Viviana Sappa examine the connectivity between these learnings in very different settings. Through the eyes of 14 apprentices, teachers and managers/coordinators, and following a phenomenographic method, the authors derive four general conceptions of connectivity, nested in a hierarchical order, and suggest that connectivity is experienced on a continuum of linear and circular processes. These conceptions and their thematic variations have implications for models, processes and practices to enhance connectivity and integration of learning in different sites. Second, the findings also have implications for how the aims, content, processes and direction of learning can be best supported for successful completion of an apprenticeship. And third, they have implications for teacher training programs through which teachers can be supported to learn about more complex and sophisticated ways of understanding teaching and learning aims, processes and directions of learning.
The issue of integration of learnings from different settings is also taken up by Barry Elsey, Amina Omarova and Ronald Grill, in this case international learners connecting learning from agricultural development work in Indonesia and postgraduate learning at a South Australian university. The paper focuses on the self-reported experiences of 18 Indonesians in the double-degree Master’s program, where the year in Australia was their first taste of learning in an overseas university and living in an Australian city. The paper is framed as a case study in cross-cultural workforce development, reflecting the aspirations of the Indonesian Ministry of Industry in enhancing the knowledge and learning skills of its young employees as a form of long-term investment and change management strategy. The authors highlight four key conclusions, relating to (a) designing a customised program that satisfies stakeholder interests from conception through to delivery in both learning content and process; (b) insisting upon a curriculum design that was going to challenge students to engage with new learning such as emphasis on self-direction and exposure to cross-cultural experiences; (c) recognising that within a university environment the process of learning is as important as acquiring new knowledge; and (d) acknowledging that universities are a key resource in workforce development, as the education acts as a stimulus to managing change through learning and innovation with young people who are the future national builders.
A very common research theme in VET research involves roles of educators. From a New Zealand perspective, Lisa Maurice-Takerei uses a multi-method, critical ethnographic approach with 20 trade tutors from two large polytechnics to rethink their teacher identity. She finds that they are seen as multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional practitioners with ‘an occupational milieu that goes beyond the reductionist and instrumentalist views of teaching with which vocational education is often beset’. The author’s findings indicate that the identities of trade tutors as educators is strong, and that they are heavily focused on their educational work, though often disconnected from the processes and administrative functions that underpin that work. She offers a characterisation of trade tutors in their multifarious roles. This characterisation challenges the notion that the requirement of a vocational trade education workforce is to deliver modularised, pre-prepared standards in semesterised segments, assessed against competencies which fit into a framework for learning. She highlights three facets of their identity – the bricoleur, the engineer and the kaitiaki – portraying the trade tutor as a skilled teaching practitioner, designer, innovator and theorist as well as guardian, mentor and guide.
Another paper that focuses on conceptions, this time of disadvantaged older workers, is that by Rebecca Meyers. The institutionalised categorisation of adults who are over 55 years of age, unemployed and low-skilled as ‘older’ and ‘disadvantaged’ may adversely affect their employment prospects and their self-esteem. Thus, the author set out to explore the experiences of eight such adults, in particular the barriers to their participation in training and job-seeking activities. Employing a qualitative, phenomenological approach and semi-structured interviews, she investigates their reactions to such categorisation. The findings could not identify a direct link between institutionalised categorisation and self-categorisation, but indicate that those labels do not enhance their self-esteem nor increase their enthusiasm for participating in activities to increase their employability. The paper concludes that these findings indicate for policy-makers a disjunction between the possibly detrimental consequences of the institutionalised categorisation of this cohort and the need to increase their participation in the labour market.
The final two papers focus on aspects of VET health programs in the midst of reform. Mary Ryan, Karleen Gwinner, Kerry Mallan and Cheryl Livock undertook a pilot study examining language, literacy and numeracy support and inclusive teaching and learning practices in a Diploma of Nursing course delivered at two TAFE institutes in Queensland. The data highlight implications arising from new, market-driven, education reforms. Two recent reforms in particular have impacted on the program: the release of the Foundation Skills Training Package and Queensland’s Higher Skills Program Policy 2014-2015. The key changes have impacted the delivery of the Diploma of Nursing course, and hold implications for VET more broadly to meet the literacy and numeracy needs of learners, and for contextualising the core skills essential to the performance standard of enrolled nurses.
The other practice paper by Debbie Zulch, Rosemary Saunders, Judith Peters and Julie Quinlivan reports on an evaluation of the outcomes of service and workplace-based learning incorporated within the Certificate III in Allied Health Assistance course at a TAFE institute in Western Australia. The two research questions focused on whether service learning activities would challenge students’ ways of thinking about older clients, and whether service learning would improve students’ confidence in their ability to enter the future aged care workforce. The method included student-generated discrete ratings, as well as thematic evaluation of student-written feedback comments, from 121 students (84% response rate). The great majority reported that the experience had challenged their way of thinking (91%) and was interesting and engaging (93%), and that they felt better prepared to enter the workforce (93%). The major themes in their responses related to the positive learning experience, increased confidence for their future working career, improved knowledge and practice of aged care, and improved resident and student quality of life. The authors conclude that their results support other research in finding multiple benefits from community-based service learning. These benefits include both the intellectual rewards of increased knowledge and industry-ready skills, as well as the personal goals of growth and social accountability, and awareness of future employment opportunities within the industry.
If there were a single thread running through all these papers it would be conceptualisation (and in some instances, re-conceptualisation) – which is an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances. In the case of this collection of papers, these specific instances include notions of connectivity and integration, labels for older workers, workforce development, inclusive teaching and learning practices, VET tutor roles, and service learning.
Adjunct Professor, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Berwyn Clayton
Professor Emerita, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia