What is happening to Organisations and what has it got to do with VET?

The VET sector is under pressure to meet new demands for the digital and online social and cultural realities of today. With an aging lecturer cohort, new industry work skills demands, skills shortages, and a more mobile australian population there is much pressure for improved results. Social networking and online services are forcing change in many businesses that we take for granted.  Newspaper circulation falling and journalists are wondering about their jobs as bloggers are beating the papers with news as it happens. The music industry is discovering people can create and share music without them.  Schools and universities are taking lessons online and allowing access from home while still retaining ownership of access.  Universities are freely  putting their lectures  on iTunesU. 

VET faces greater demands than it can satisfactorily meet: demands for multi-skilled workers ready for the workplace who dont necessarily want to complete a full course. They want just  the essential skills so as to get and perform in a  job and then maybe complete more as the situation allows.  We fund VET on completion of certification not on partial completion which is course completion. We have increased numbers of workers traveling across state boundaries but we have no means to track the skills acquisition at a cross state or at course completion level. TAFEs are state run and controlled. RTOs are independent organisations all with their own needs and agendas.

The bigger and older the organisation the harder it is to control and direct employees and respond to cultural changes.  The costly factory like bricks and mortar structures and standardised legalistic procedures inhibit innovation.  For instance in-spite of lack of support internally, teachers are starting to communicate, problem solve and organise themselves online using tools outside of the traditional ownership of their institutions.  With tools such as blogs. micro-blogs They are creating PLNs - Personal Learning networks to share and learn amongst professional peers.  This is an example of disruptive technologies enabling individuals to self organise and be productive outside the formal structures. This personal or individual learning gives us a clue as to what the technology can do for individuals.  If we can harness that capacity to tailor personal learning plans for student-learners and link them up with mentors and meaningfully track that learning we might create an improved learning experience that is consistent with all the standards and evidence the system requires.  The use of LMSs (learning management systems) at an institutional level is growing but not shared. That means with some creative innovation there is some hope for the future of greater transparency and equity of access to results at least if not to learning. The results of learning belong equally to the learner AND the certifying institution! We have no national mechanism other than paper to store our results.

Two glaring omissions, therefore, are the lack of national curriculum and the TOTAL lack of national tracking of training by individuals.  The first IS being worked on and with proper debate(in Australia? with the media? ha!) there just may be progress.  The second how ever.... well who knows? With two major sectors - state based VET and institution based private colleges, there is no means to meaningfully track results or quality for that matter from a Federal government perspective.  VET is one of the most hidden value chains that the Federal Gvernment tries to fund and manage. Most training e.g. defence and internal corporate, is not tracked and individuals find documentation of that skills acquisition difficult. We rob them of what is rightly theirs.

One step in the right direction would be a national learning system that tracks results, equity  and quality nationally.  The skills shortage remediation efforts could be more usefully understood, managed and innovated if we could gain visibility nationally and provide better opportunities for individuals to flexibly gain and document skills gained.  The technologies available, such as service oriented architecture, enterprise information architectures, data warehousing, ID management equity of access, remote and rural access and online teaching and learning could be utilised for productive innovation in a critical sector.  Effectively this would give a national asset, a national learning management system for all citizens.  This is the missing piece of VET education.

Technology and VET Part 1

Beyond all doubt the Vocational and Further education sector is a vital part of the skills development needs of Australia. it is also a strange balance of various management and research authorities, state governments, teacher unions, industry groups, private enterprises and lots of not very responsive and ancient, states managed bricks and mortar institutions and private colleges.

Funding and governance originates with the federal government through disbursements via COAG and other discrete and special projects funding arrangements. Enterprises and Defence tend to arrange their own extensive publicly unfunded training that goes quite below the radar of visibility of the sector in official statistics.

Monitoring and research about VET policy and initiatives is handled for the Government by academic institutions and specific authorities such as NCVER. Typically this is out of date by 12 to 24 months as there is no way to see anything even approximating real time data as there is no infrastructure at the moment for information gathering and sharing. That may change as DEEWR is starting a project to set data standards for the sector. This is a major defect in management of the sector as feedback for effectiveness of policy is necessarily lacking. How do we know that a policy is worth pursuing?

Initiatives such as learning management systems and online learning capabilities are supported by clearing house functions such as Australian Flexible Learning Framework and similar parallel initiatives in the states. It appears that the uptake of e learning is slowly increasing rising: increase has been fourfold over the last three years(http://www.cshisc.com.au/load_page.asp?ID=331) but there is much room for improvement.

There is overwhelming evidence of individual initiatives using social networking tools like Twitter, blogs, flickr, brightkite, etc. These come about through teachers, with strong commitments to 21st century learning, exercising their own initiatives often against policies and security demands of authorities. They are vitally persuaded by the needs and opportunities of a communications equipped culture in which we are immersed. In particular, they are driven by the interests, the learning needs and capabilities of young learners. They are learning themselves in conversations with both others and the young digital learners and exploring these new possibilities for learning. There are some amazing stories emerging about the use of digital technologies not just in second life virtual realities but also in (superficially) unlikely places like stone masonry(cf. simon brown QLD vet in google). Connectedness is transforming learning opportunities. Getting apprentices online to show their talents and find opportunities is a new and amazing development. Why are we not using this connectedness in VET?

We are seeing some use of ePortfolios in VET (Swinburne TAFE) for skills capability recording. This is essential for RPL(recognition of Prior Learning) this is needed across state and institution boundaries. The technology is there why are we not exploring this nationally?

We are seeing an exciting growth of communities of practice quite unrestrained by formal organisational structures and commitments. There is an openness and commitment to sharing that has enormous potential to benefit our communities. This is quite a radical change from the formalised and structured and organisational learning of the past.

The lack of full use of online tools and e learning holds us back from creating the skills we desperately require to meet the changes in technology, in the economy, the skills shortage with an aging workforce and the needs of people who wish to gain more skills or wish to reenter the workforce. Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is difficult and expensive to establish. This is a sore point for those wanting to reenter the workforce as gathering documentation is complex. Remote and rural populations are poory served by VET opportunities through lack of good online and broadband services. An example of this is the need for skills in mining areas remote from home and remote from study opportunities. This puts pressure on workers to get into the work force and not complete their certification, hence certification completion rates are falling. A further contributor to the falling completion rate is the need for multi-skilled workplace ready staff. Farmers want hands who can drive tractors, use GPSs, be aware of OH&S, who know how to handle pesticides and irrigation and a dozen other skills. Learners are wanting bits of courses rather than the whole certification and pathways are not flexible to allow for this need. And there is no national recording of skills acquisition.

There is something missing at the centre of the VET sector. Something that should hold the national VET enterprise together. Something that unifies the largely States based efforts of a critical contributor to Australian productivity. Something that can help us create flexible pathways for learning for all and recognise those skills. Something that gives any Australian citizen better access to VET opportunities.

Part 2: Initiatives of the Federal Government