Study Gold Coast CEO Alfred Slogrove, Study QLD CEO Shannon Willoughby and Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate in front of new Mobile Student Hub | PHOTO by Monique St Clair, myGC
Study Gold Coast has launched a brand new ‘Mobile Student Hub’, to take their support services directly to the community.
The small van will be able to travel to schools, campuses and the student community, bringing various support services for those looking to study.
It was launched following the success of the Gold Coast Student Hub in Southport, which opened 18 months ago.
It’s believed over 8,500 students have visited the Hub since it opened, coming from over 70 countries.
Carrying information such as careers advice, workshops and professional development programs, the vans roll out across the Gold Coast from today.
Mayor Tom Tate says the Mobile Hub, which was unveiled at Council Chambers this morning, will go a long way to accommodate the Gold Coast’s growing number of students.
“The Gold Coast is a city that invests in its future.
“That’s why the City has made such a firm commitment to its education and training sector.
“By supporting our students and enhancing their experience a student’s time spent studying ad living on the Gold Coast is enriched and as a result they become champions for the city,” Mayor Tate said.
Nurses are really important people in our national health system.
In this first review since one in 2002 their education and training is a key component of the terms of reference.
The review
In a press release in January 2019, Senator the Hon. Bridget McKenzie announced the first independent review of Australian nursing preparation since 2002 – Educating theNurse of the Future, which will commence this year.
As her press release points out:
“The Review will look at issues like making sure the nursing profession remains an attractive career option for students; ensuring that our nursing education system is internationally competitive and that career pathways for the Enrolled, Registered Nurses and Nurse Practitioners are relevant.”
The review will consider “how the education and preparation of nurses in Australia will ensure the nursing workforce is well placed to meet the future needs of Australian communities and our health system.”
The terms of reference
The full terms of reference can be found here. Basically, they are aimed at examining:
the effectiveness of current educational preparation of and articulation between enrolled and registered nurses and nurse practitioners in meeting the needs of health service delivery
factors that affect the choice of nursing as an occupation, including for men
the role and appropriateness of transition to practice programs however named, and
the competitiveness and attractiveness of Australian nursing qualifications across international contexts.
Consultations
The review panel, headed by Emeritus Professor Steven Schwartz AM, will be consulting widely. Public consultation workshops will be held from April until June. Details about the consultations will be uploaded onto the review’s websiteas soon as they have been confirmed, so stay tuned to the site if this is a topic of interest.
Submissions can also be made
Submissions based on the Terms of Reference can be made by emailing them to nursingreview@health.gov.au prior to the closing date of 21 June 2019.
Submissions will be uploaded onto the Consultation Hub website, but if you wish for your submission to remain anonymous, please include this decision in your submission.
The 2002 review concluded that some strategies were needed, including building a sustainable nursing workforce, and maximising health outcomes through quality education.
The 2002 review made 34 recommendations. Let’s see where the new review takes us.
One of the few things both sides agree on in this election campaign is that we must get education right. A highly educated and well-trained workforce is our best insurance that all the benefits that digital disruption brings don’t come at the cost of many people unable to find decent jobs.
As a rich nation, our workers are highly paid. That’s not bad, it’s good. But it does mean we have to ensure our workers continue being equipped with the knowledge and skills that make their labour valuable – to local employers and to the purchasers of the goods and services we export.
One thing it doesn’t mean is that all our youngsters should go to university. There will be plenty of well-paid, safe, interesting jobs for the less academically inclined, provided they’re equipped with the valuable technical and caring skills provided by a healthy vocational education and training sector.
A top-notch technical education system will also be key to achieving something we’ve long just rabbited on about: lifelong learning. Being able to update your skills for your occupation’s latest digital whiz-bangery, or quickly acquire different skills for a job in a new industry with better prospects than the one that just ejected you.
But while we’re emphasising education’s instrumental importance to maintaining our material standard of living, we should never lose sight of its intrinsic value to our spiritual living standard. Education for its own sake. Because it satisfies humans’ insatiable curiosity about the world – even the universe – we live in.
We need to get education and training right at every level, from childcare (these days renamed ECEC – “early childhood education and care”), preschool, primary and secondary school, vocational education and training, and university.
Illustration: Simon LetchCREDIT:
To me, our greater understanding of the way tiny brains develop combines with common sense to say that, in our efforts to get every level of education up to scratch, we should start at the bottom and work up.
The better-equipped kids are when they progress from one stage to the next, the easier it is for that next stage to ensure they thrive rather than fall behind.
On childcare, the Coalition did a good job of rationalising the feds’ two conflicting childcare subsidies, but Labor is promising a lot more money for childcare, including phasing in much better pay for (mainly female) better-educated childcare workers.
The Coalition has achieved universal preschool for four-year-olds and, in the budget, extended that funding for a further two years. Labor has topped that, promising permanent funding arrangements and extension of the scheme to three-year-olds, as most other rich countries do.
We don’t spend as much as some comparable counties on education and our results are declining.
Let’s be frank: because Labor plans to increase, rather than cut, the tax on high income-earners, it has a lot more money to spend on all levels of education (plus a lot of other areas).
It’s certainly promising to spend more on schools. The Coalition’s great achievement has been to introduce its own, better and somewhat cheaper version of businessman David Gonski’s needs-based funding of schools – which it immediately marred by doing a special deal with Catholic schools. Labor’s promising to return to its earlier Gonski funding levels (but, hopefully, not to its earlier commitment that no rich school would lose a dollar).
It’s often claimed we spend a lot on schools relative to other countries, but the Grattan Institute’s schools expert, Dr Peter Goss, says that, when you allow for our younger population, only the Netherlands and the United States spend less than we do among nine other comparable rich countries.
International testing shows our 15-year-olds’ scores for maths, science and reading are each below the average for those countries. On maths, our score of 524 in 2003 had dropped to 494 by 2015.
For science, our gap between the top and bottom students – a measure of fairness – is wider than for the others, bar Canada, South Korea, Japan and even Britain.
Which demolishes the claim that we’re pouring more money into schools but getting worse results. What’s true is that our spending is below average and our results are also below average – and getting worse.
So, do we need to spend a lot more? No, not a lot more now we’ve gone a long way towards redistributing funding favour of needy (mainly public) schools full of kids with low income, low educated parents.
The feds and, more particularly, the states have more to do to re-align funding between advantaged non-government schools and their own disadvantaged public schools.
Once disadvantaged schools are getting their full whack of needs-based funding, however, we can end the eternal shootfight over money and move to the more important issue of ensuring the money’s better spent.
Much can be done to help teachers move to more effective ways of teaching, making schools less like a production line and giving more attention to individuals, many of whom have trouble keeping up, while some are insufficiently challenged.
But, Goss says, this is mainly a job for the state governments, and the feds should avoid trying to backseat drive. The feds would help more by obliging the universities to do a much better job of selecting and preparing future teachers.
The current system of funding and access for further education is inefficient and complex, House of Lords report says
“Much more investment” is needed in vocational education and lifelong learning, according to a House of Lords select committee.
In a report entitled Tackling intergenerational unfairness, the Select Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision says younger people were “disadvantaged by an education and training system that is ill-equipped for the needs of the rapidly changing labour market”.
The report describes post-16 vocational education as “underfunded and poorly managed”: “The government’s apprenticeships strategy is confused and has not achieved the desired effect. In addition, the options to retrain and reskill in later life are incoherent and underfunded. Much more investment is needed in both vocational education and lifelong learning to prepare younger generations for a 100-year life.”
The report adds that the dominance of undergraduate degrees in post-18 education “might not be in students’ or the country’s best interest, and it has failed to create an effective market”. It continues: “The complexity of further education pathways and funding demonstrates, at a practical level, the undervaluing of the sector compared with higher education.”
The apprenticeships system is described as “confused”, in the report, which says: “Resources raised via the levy should not be used to rebadge training that would occur anyway. There is too little monitoring and too little focus on quality and outcomes. We note the number of changes in the system in recent years, but do not believe failed experiments should be used as a pretext for deferring effective reform.”
Delivering ‘real skills’ for lifelong careers
The committee’s report calls on the government to improve the quality of apprenticeships to deliver “real skills for life-long and fulfilling careers and ensure they are focused on those young people, and retrainers, who are not well served by other education routes”.
It concludes that the government should “substantially increase funding for further education and vocational qualifications”. “Many students would be better served by pursuing vocational educational pathways. The current system of funding and access is inefficient, complex and risks perpetuating unfairness between those who access higher education and those who do not,” it adds. “We must rebalance the value attributed to higher education and further education.”
Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said: “The cuts to the education system have had big implications over the last decade. Many young people are leaving education without the qualifications needed to get on in life. Some of the ones who are gaining degree qualifications are often finding themselves in low-skilled jobs.
“We need change and we need it now. To ensure that our young people aren’t short-changed compared to previous generations, we need to invest heavily in our education system.”
Industry training organisations say they will cease to exist and the transfer of industry training to vocational education providers will have perverse outcomes, but Chris Hipkins says that’s not the case and the ITOs are scaremongering. Photo: John Sefton
Industry training organisations have hit back at Education Minister Chris Hipkins, who has accused some of being misleading and obstructive as the fight to be heard on vocational education reform rages on.
The Government’s proposed overhaul is significant and has been described by the Auditor-General as one of the “largest changes to public organisations in recent times”.
While every branch of the sector supports parts of the proposal to varying degrees, and widely buys into the intent, there has been pushback over some of the proposals, especially by the industry training organisations (ITOs).
This opposition has been exacerbated by a tight consultation timeframe, which many feel is insufficient to allow them to have a genuine say in the matter.
There is an added level of consultation frustration for ITOs and private training establishments (PTEs) because they were not included in the consultation ahead of the minister’s discussion document release in February.
This has led to a war of words, with ITOs criticising the lack of detail, lack of costs and possible outcomes, while the minister accuses some in the sector of making misleading comments and scaremongering.
“What we’ve been saying in public represents our sincerely held analysis of the possible outcomes from these proposals.”
Other arms of the sector were included in the pre-emptive reviews – the review of the vocational education and training (VET) system and the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITP) Roadmap 2020 – but the ITOs and private training establishments say they were not.
The sector is complicated and wading through discussion documents and submissions can sometimes feel like drowning in alphabet soup.
But the crux of Chris Hipkins’ proposal is relatively straightforward, and separates into three core parts: merge 16 autonomous polytechs into a single, centralised New Zealand Institute of Skills & Technology; create a unified funding system, encompassing both provider-based and work-based learning; and redefine the roles of industry training organisations (ITOs) and instead establish “industry skills bodies”.
This would mean the ITOs would no longer exist in their current form, but Hipkins says industry will still have a core role to play, and training will be more employer-led than it is already.
ITOs are wary, and believe transferring industry training and apprenticeships to vocational education providers could lead to employers withdrawing, giving fewer opportunities for on-job training.
Consultation frustration
The proposed reforms come following the bail-out of four polytechnics last year at a cost of $100 million to the taxpayer.
The cost of the polytechnics, and the potential for the system to fall apart, has created a sense of urgency in the Government’s eyes.
Hipkins says he wants to push ahead with polytech changes to be implemented by the start of next year. To stick to this timeline, consultation has to be brief so decisions can be finalised and any legislative changes moved through by the end of the year.
But there is concern over the nature of the consultation, which closed on April 5.
The Auditor-General’s office has issued a warning in its submission, saying the tight timeframe is troubling, and the lack of detail in the proposal makes it hard to assess the outcomes.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins says he needs to push on with vocational education reforms to do away with uncertainty, but the industry training sectors begging for him to slow down. Photo: Lynn Grieveson
“We understand that the losses incurred have resulted in the Crown having to provide financial support to some institutions, and are adding to the urgency for system reform. However, because of the scale of the proposal, we have some concerns about the timetable for that reform,” the report says.
Hipkins says there was genuine consultation with those who gave constructive feedback, and no final decisions had been made from the outset.
But ITOs have felt locked out of the process.They weren’t in the room ahead of the minister’s February 13 bombshell, and they don’t believe there has been enough detail in the proposal to have a genuine consultation in just seven weeks.
In response, Skills Active, an ITO which is a member of the Industry Training Federation (ITF), has filed a judicial review of what it calls an “insufficient consultation period”.
Skills Active chief executive Grant Davidson says there needs to be robust examination of Hipkins’ decision to set a seven-week consultation period for a “once-in-a-generation reform that will radically overhaul 16 ITPs and 11 ITOs and will impact quarter of a million learners”.
Scaremongering or genuine analysis?
Things could be improved, but the ITOs say there is no need to rush through major reform just to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
ITOs have seen the number of students grow in the past five years, and the cost per student to the Government is significantly less than those training in the classroom.
Industry Training Federation chief executive Josh Williams says it would be sad if the initial proposal was implemented as written.
Williams, and the Federation’s 11 ITO members, see a number of laudable goals in the proposals, and much that can be built on to ensure an integrated and sustainable system.
“However, as described, the proposal will result in a loss of industry voice on the ground. Unless employers have a voice in how training is organised, they will not participate.”
Hipkins has categorised this message, and the assertion by ITOs that they will cease to exist as misleading and scaremongering. He says the new industry skills bodies will do everything ITOs currently do, and more.
When consultation came to an impasse letters were exchanged between the minister’s office and ITOs.
Skills Active’s Davidson says Hipkins ignored “consistent, repeated and reasonable requests” to extend the consultation period.
Eventually, meetings took place, but there was a feeling that if someone disagreed with the proposal they were being written off as obstructive.
Given the tight timeframe, Hipkins made it clear he was not going expend energy consulting with those he deemed weren’t genuinely engaging in constructive consultation.
But the Federation’s Williams says the industry training sector can be “justifiably aggrieved at the lack of engagement prior to the proposal, and the very short timeframe”.
“What we’ve been saying in public represents our sincerely held analysis of the possible outcomes from these proposals.” Those views are based on discussions with 6500 employers, and ITOs reject the claim they are scaremongering.
The Federation, along with private training establishments, are calling for a taskforce to be set up, with a range of representatives from across the sector.
Williams says there is a “strong level of unified concern” about one specific element of the proposal: the transfer of industry training and apprenticeships to vocational providers. There is a chance for further consultation and changes around this proposal, he says.
Feroz Ali, who is head of Quality Tertiary Institutions (QTI), an organisation representing 14 private tertiary establishments, (PTEs), says the Government has the opportunity to create a legacy.
“This can be a good thing or a bad thing”.
While there are polytechs that have been failed by poor governance and financial management, there are also examples of successful training establishments, Ali says.
The Government needs to consult with those living and breathing success in the vocational education sector, rather than tethering itself to a proposal based in theory, he says.
While India’s tertiary education sector remains among the largest in the world, only 1 out of 10 young people, overwhelmingly from affluent families, acquire a higher education and we havee the answer to this problem
Each year, over 20 million students enrol for a graduate degree in India. But as the quality of education in these institutions differs, the race to join the country’s top academic institutions is intense. In fact, with an acceptance rate of only 0.7per cent, IIT JEE has earned the reputation of being the toughest entrance exam in the world.
Concerns over the quality of education have not been helped by a rote learning model and poor school management, which are eroding student learning outcomes. In fact, the 2017 ASER report underlines that while enrolment in secondary education has doubled over the last decade, children still lack foundational skills. The report highlights that as many as 27per cent of school children in grade eight could not read at the level of a grade two student and 57per cent could not even solve elementary mathematical problems.
And while India’s tertiary education sector remains among the largest in the world, only 1 out of 10 young people, overwhelmingly from affluent families, acquire a higher education. In these circumstances, as the world moves to a new skills economy driven by digitization, it becomes essential for India to reassess its twenty-first century education imperatives.
What Ails the Education Sector in India?
In the era of AI, where expertise in new technologies is rapidly outdated, the education sector must constantly evolve new skill paths that enable nations to bring the benefits of technology to its citizens. As information brokers, fusion engineers, and robot mechanics become the most sought-after skills, the need of the hour is for courses that are relevant to the new digital world. Further, in a country where as many as 53per cent of graduates have been categorized as being unemployable, the focus must finally shift from churning out graduates to delivering employability.
The success of Germany’s Vocational Education and Training System is a case in point. Its unique apprentice system, which provides for only 20per cent of theoretical learning, trains young people in almost 350 recognized occupations and guarantees them employment at the end of the course. The result—an unemployment rate of just 5.2per cent, which is half the statistic for Europe.
Yet, in India, only 5per cent of young people in the 14-18 year age group participate in vocational training. Subsequently, youth who have not been skilled for the new economy find their way into the unorganized sector that accounts for 95per cent of the employment generated within the country.
To achieve success in creating employment opportunities for the young, as experienced in countries like Germany, India will not just need to reorient its educational system to focus on creating employable graduates but will also need to address its current deficit of quality teachers across all levels.
Taking India to the New Skills Economy
If India is to successfully reorient its educational system to meet its twenty-first century education imperatives, several immediate reforms are the need of the hour. First, the branding and execution of vocational programs must be significantly altered, so that these are at par with the outstanding standards demonstrated by countries like Germany. Second, efforts to decentralize education must be given a fresh impetus. Third, evaluation parameters will have to move from measuring quantity to gauging quality.
Today, India faces a strange paradox. On one hand, with 50per cent of its population below the age of 25, its young population could be the fuel that drives India’s economy. On the other hand, with the highest number of illiterate adults in the world, it is in no position to leverage this unique advantage. Clearly, while India could have the highest number of young people in the world, it’s most important challenge will be to make these youth employable to fulfil its twenty-first century education and learning imperatives.
A contemporary Treaty of Waitangi claim filed on Thursday is further evidence of growing opposition to the government’s proposed Reform of Vocational Education, according to Skills Active Board member Des Ratima, who lodged the claim at the Waitangi Tribunal in Wellington.
The claim alleges that the rushed and inadequate consultation process for vocational reform has breached the Treaty, and was filed on behalf of Ratima himself and Skills Active’s 50% Māori shareholding. The claim also asserts that the inadequate consultation period and lack of engagement with the claimants has undermined the exercise of their mana and Tino Rangatiratanga over vocational education.
“Our claim asserts that the government has failed to recognise and provide for Māori taonga, namely vocational education; and failed to honour the principle of partnership under the Treaty,” says Mr Ratima, who last year was made an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit for his services to Māori over many decades.
“Each year, 22,500 Māori take part in industry training and reap the benefits of the ITO system,” Mr Ratima says.
“As kaumatua, we have a responsibility and a mandate to protect the interests of our rangatahi,” he adds.
Mr Ratima notes that Skills Active has achieved parity between Māori and non-Māori completions, something no other university or polytech has achieved.
“Māori will be disproportionately affected by Minister Hipkin’s proposed reforms – radical reforms that will completely overhaul vocational training in Aotearoa. So where is the evidence for dismantling the ITO system when it’s not broken, and it’s working for Māori?
“We are seeking a reasonable consultation period extended at least until the end of June, commensurate with the scope of this reform. And we wish to have some scrutiny of the government’s engagement with its Treaty partners in this reform.”
Mr Ratima says Education Minister Chris Hipkins has said recently in an answer to a Parliamentary Question that he has not received any negative feedback from Māori about the proposed vocational education reform – despite the many representations that have been made to him in person and in writing by individuals and representatives of hui.
“The Minister should be in no doubt that we believe these reforms will negatively affect Māorilearners. Government needs to embrace the concept of co-design from the outset, and by collaboration, produce mutually beneficial outcomes.” Mr Ratima said.
“Māori tenaciously hold to the ‘three Ps’ of the Māori-Crown relationship: Participation, Partnership and Protection. This reform offends all three.”
A rare breakout of peace between public and private school has changed the election outlook and shifted the campaign focus from schools to skills and training, where the choice will be between a business-based system or one focused on public TAFEs.
The spectacular $4.6 billion funding injection by the government into Catholic schools in September silenced the education sector’s most powerful lobby group, and defused a long running conflict between state and independent schools.
Jennifer Buckingham said the country is at a point where there is no sector war between private and public schools. Lauren Shay
“We’ve reached a point where this no sector war going on,” said senior research fellow at the Centre for Independent studies, Jennifer Buckingham.
“At this point we haven’t got public schools squaring off against the catholic and private. That’s been a feature of past campaigns. It’s light-on this time.”
In this election the major parties actually agree on two priorities for school education: lifting teacher performance and using evidence to change classroom practice. They’ve been out bidding each other to establish an evidence institute.
Last week’s surprise NAPLAN improvement in reading standards among year 3 and 5 students was attributed to the feedback teachers are getting in the classroom.
Businessman David Gonski, in his second review of schools, recommended an evidence institute be established and the Coalition made an extra $20 billion it was offering conditional on schools agreeing to ‘‘to drive improvements in teaching practice’’.
Labor said it will spend $280 million on an evidence institute.
In one policy difference on improving teacher performance Labor is planning to restrict entry to university teaching courses to the top 30 per cent of students. It said it will use caps on funding if the sector does not take action quickly enough.
It will also rejuvenate the Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher program and fund extra professional development for teachers.
‘‘Teacher education is really important and it’s the one area where the federal government can act,’’ said Dr Buckingham. ‘‘I’d like to see what the Coalition has in mind. They have talked about boosting teachers in remote locations.
“Teacher education is really important and it’s the one area where the federal government can act.”
— Dr Jennifer Buckingham, Centre for Independent Studies
‘‘We want rigour in terms of teaching courses and in the quality of teaching candidates. We want people going into schools to teach who are bright and able to keep up with research on effective teaching standards.”
The Grattan Institute, which will publish a comparison of school education policy this week, said raising teacher standards and an evidence institute are two of its top three priorities.
Its third priority is getting all schools to a consistent level of funding under the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). This is a reference to state government funding of public schools. Economist and school education fellow at the institute, Julie Sonnemann, said the Commonwealth needs to push state governments to lift their side of the bargain.
The Coalition said under its ‘‘Quality Schools Program’’ which consolidates the reforms of businessman David Gonski’s second review, recurrent funding for schools will grow from $17.5 billion in 2017 to $32.4 billion in 2029.
That will take total funding over a decade to $307 billion, which Labor said it will beat with $322 billion.
Labor said overall in this election it will outspend the government by $10 billion, as it reinstates the ‘‘lost Gonski money’’ from the first Gonski review.
Not only has the sector reached a rare state of peace funding has reached eye-watering levels.
The review announcement by education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek more than a year ago allowed the party to sidestep awkward questions about what it would do with trouble-plagued state-based TAFE systems.
Meanwhile the coalition struggled on for 12 months fighting criticism of falling TAFE enrolments, bad publicity about training providers and the overhang of the VET-Fee Help debacle, until it rushed out the Joyce review late last year.
Labor’s Tanya Plibersek committed the party to a review of post-secondary education if it wins government. Eamon Gallagher
Labor’s proposed review is meant to reset the balance between universities and TAFE which is heavily biased to universities through fee assistance for students; stabilise the erratic contribution of the states to skills training, and turn around enrolments which have been falling since 2012.
In the budget the Coalition promised more than half a billion dollars on skills and 80,000 new apprentices.
“There hasn’t been new investment in the vocational education and training sector for 10 years,” the chief executive of TAFE directors Australia, Craig Robertson, said.
“We’ve had major population growth and a restructuring of the economy but we haven’t had a big investment in skilling.”
Labor is promising to inject $1.73 billion into skills, TAFE and apprentices. This would include $200 million to refurbish TAFE campuses plus money for 150,000 apprenticeships and 100,000 free places for TAFE students. The cost would be spread out with $1 billion in the medium term and $730 million over the forward estimates.
Ms Plibersek said she wants TAFE to be an independent system, distinct from the university sector. This disappointed some education reformers who argue the future of the tertiary sector is to bring skills the skills sector and universities closer together especially on funding for students.
Labor’s post-secondary review plans have very little to say about private TAFE providers, which have taken an increasingly important role in service delivery. Private providers are not mentioned once in the review’s terms of reference, although they do more 60 per cent of the teaching.
Labor’s $1.73 billion goes almost entirely on the public providers. It will rely on the TAFE system to do the lifting whereas the Joyce review of training, released by the Coalition on budget night, relies on industry to take the lead.
Mr Joyce said training development and qualifications should be reshaped with input from business and a new National Skills Commission should co-ordinate the different interests of Canberra and the states.
TAFE gets all of Labor’s promised $1.75 billion, but the private sector accounts for 60 per cent of students. Rob Homer
Apart from $525 million to finance new apprenticeships the Coalition has not put money on the table for the skills sector.
The Australian Council for Private Education and Training said only $54 million of the $525 million is actually new money, which it found “very disappointing”. The rest is re purposed from the Skilling Australians Fund.
Chairman of the Council Alexis Watt said Mr Joyce had a “better vision” for the sector and said Labor’s 100,000 free TAFE places spread over four years was not a lot given 4 million people were enrolled in a training course last year.
On universities Labor is promising to outspend the Coalition. Tanya Plibersek has made an explicit promise to reinstate the demand-driven system to the value of $10 billion over 10 years.
The Coalition froze funding for new students in 2017 to save more than $2 billion for the federal budget. It said when the freeze ended new funding would be based on a performance driven system.
The probable new mechanism (it was due to be announced in June) would measure student attrition rates, graduate outcomes and socio-economic enrolments to set a new rate for commonwealth support. But the baseline for increases would be population growth which is running at just over 1 per cent.
Labor would return the demand-driven system to inflation indexation which the higher education program director at the Grattan Institute, Andrew Norton, predicted would give the universities 4 or 5 per cent more money for students than the coalition’s performance-related cap.
There was no fundamental disagreement on the demand driven system, only on the rate of increase and how it was achieved.
“The coalition is putting fiscal concerns ahead of higher education. Labor puts higher education ahead.” The Grattan Insitute’s Andrew Norton. Eamon Gallagher
“Under the Coalition the unis will get the lower of what they would get under Labor, but they will get something. The Coalition is putting fiscal concerns ahead of higher education. Labor puts higher education ahead.”
“Higher education has had a good run in the last decade. Total revenues have been strong,”
He said income from overseas students was an important contributor.
“I think any spending priorities will be around TAFE. Universities are in a stable period after a good run.”
Universities’ biggest criticism of the Coalition is on cuts to research funding.
On budget night the Coalition finally killed the promise of a $3.9 billion research infrastructure fund which has been dangling in front of the universities since 2013.
Universities say that’s on top of a Coalition cut of more than $328 million in Research Block Grants last year and falling government spending on R&D, which is now just 0.5 per cent of GDP.
Labor has promised a review of research funding and a prime minister’s science and innovation council, although Leader Bill Shorten did not put a cost on these.
Labor will spend $300 million on a university infrastructure fund.
Mr Norton said both major parties are relying on the fact research funding from the private sector is going up.
Apart from differences on the skills the big election difference is in early education.
The Australian Early Childhood Development census 2018 reported that one in five children is starting school developmentally behind their peers.
The Labor Party said it will introduce preschool education for three and four-year-olds and will fund it with $1.75 billion over four years. By contrast, the Coalition renewed funding for four-year-olds only, for one year, at a cost of $453 million.
In the weeks before the election the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia initiated a campaign to lobby for 15 hours a week of education for three and four-year-olds, fully subsidised.
The campaign was launched by the director of the Gonski Institute for Education at the University of New South Wales, Adrian Piccoli, a former education minister and National Party deputy leader.
Mr Piccoli told The Australian Financial Review two years of early childhood education should be on the election agenda.
“It’s an issue of cost. It’s significant for families in the 25 to 40-year age group.”
“Pre-school is subsidised for children from disadvantaged families. But not for middle-income families. I would have thought there were some marginal seats in Sydney and Melbourne where cost is an issue, especially for women swinging voters.”
The Australian Financial Review Higher Education Summit, 2019 is in Brisbane on August 27 and 28, www.afrhighered.com.au. The Australia Financial Review and UniSuper are hosting the fifth annual AFR Higher Education Awards on August 27 at the Hilton Brisbane. Entries are now open www.afrhighered.com.au
Ahead of the coming federal election, Ai Group is releasing a series of policy papers on issues of importance to business and the community, including skills, education and training priorities.
“Education and training plays a critical role in the economy and the broader community both in addressing workforce skill needs and improving social inclusion,” Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox says. “The transformation of our economy is leading to skill mismatches and shortages due to the new tasks and jobs that are being created. Better skills alignment requires more regular skills forecasting to identify specific skills in demand.
“Critical shortages exist for Australia’s STEM workforce. Ai Group calls for measures to grow and strengthen our STEM-qualified workforce through a national STEM skills strategy led by government and industry. Ai Group is helping to address this gap through its Industry 4.0 Higher Apprenticeships Program, which provides a key platform for the delivery of workforce skills through an employment-based learning program.”
He says that businesses require more support for workforce planning, and industry requires access to programs that are flexible in length and mode in both the VET and higher education sectors.
“With literacy and numeracy levels a constraint on business effectiveness, Ai Group urges the funding, development and promotion of a national workforce language, literacy and numeracy strategy and program, developed in partnership with industry. The program must incorporate the development of digital literacy skills.
“Australia’s youth unemployment rate is concerningly high. Increased investment is needed in transition programs that equip individual young people with the right skills to enable them to enjoy greater opportunities and to more fully participate in the workforce and the community.
“Australian industry needs its apprenticeship system to grow. A number of measures are needed for it to sufficiently meet industry’s needs, including a national body to oversee the system.”
The government has announced the locations of 12 “Institutes of Technology” in England, intended to provide high-quality skills training.
The aim is to offer young people a vocational alternative to universities.
Employers will support the institutes, most of which will be based around existing colleges and universities.
The dozen include three in London, two in the west Midlands and with others in Milton Keynes, Swindon, Durham, Exeter, York and Somerset.
Prime Minister Theresa May said they would “end outdated perceptions” that were biased against vocational skills.
But Labour said the plans were too small-scale and would not help the “overwhelming majority” of students in technical education.
Vocational training has often been seen as being underserved by the education system, with more status attached to young people taking an academic pathway, through GCSEs, A-levels and university.
Training gap
The idea of introducing a network of Institutes of Technology is to create a high-quality route to gain skills and technical qualifications, comparable to going to university.
They will begin opening from the autumn, supported by funding of £170m.
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The institutes, based in further education colleges and universities, will each have an industry specialism, and use the expertise of relevant employers.
For instance, the planned institute in Durham will involve local colleges, Newcastle University and Nissan, with a specialism in “digital advanced manufacturing”.
In east London, Queen Mary, University of London will lead a group with Newham College and employers including Siemens, with specialisms of transport and engineering.
There have been warnings that by international standards England has relatively low numbers of people trained for advanced vocational skills.
The review of higher education funding, chaired by financier Philip Augar, is believed to have been looking at ways to improve access to student finance for those taking vocational courses.
There are plans for a new technical qualification, the T-level, to be introduced next year, which is the latest attempt to create a vocational equivalent to A-levels.
More flexible system
“I firmly believe that education is key to opening up opportunity for everyone – but to give our young people the skills they need to succeed, we need an education and training system which is more flexible and diverse than it is currently,” said the prime minister.
“These new institutes will help end outdated perceptions that going to university is the only desirable route, and build a system which harnesses the talents of our young people,” said Mrs May.
Matthew Fell, policy director of the CBI business group, said: “Expanding high-quality technical education and training is a top priority for employers, who will welcome this extra investment.”
The institutes will be the “pinnacle of technical training”, said Education Secretary Damian Hinds.
He hoped they would “make sure young people have the skills they need to build a well-paid rewarding career, while the economy gains the skilled workers it needs to be more productive”.
But Labour’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said the institutes did not match the scale of the demand.
“While investment in further education is desperately needed, this announcement will do nothing for the overwhelming majority of providers and students in technical education,” said Ms Rayner.
She said the funding did not replace the money already lost to further and adult education budgets – and the proposed institutes did not cover enough of the country.
“When they first announced this policy years ago, the government said they would make higher-level technical education available in all areas, yet this list does not include a single university or college in the north-west,” she said.
The leads to set up the Institutes of Technology are:
Barking and Dagenham College, east London
Dudley College of Technology, west Midlands
Harrow College and Uxbridge College, west London
Milton Keynes College, Buckinghamshire
New College Durham, north-east England
Queen Mary University of London, east London
Solihull College and University Centre, west Midlands
Swindon College, Wiltshire
University of Exeter, Devon
University of Lincoln
Weston College of Further and Higher Education, Somerset
“Much more investment” is needed in vocational education and lifelong learning, according to a House of Lords select committee.
