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This paper uses data from a recent national project on workforce development for vocational education and training (VET) practitioners in the service skills sector to examine the issue of teaching qualifications for VET practitioners in Australia. Data on the level of qualifications is limited and incomplete (Mlotkowski & Guthrie, 2010) and the continuing debate about what qualifications are and should be required of Australian VET practitioners is therefore proceeding in something of a vacuum. This paper provides some up-to-date empirical evidence about the level of qualifications of VET practitioners in teaching and learning (pedagogy) and in their industry area (or discipline). It then considers whether the qualification levels described are sufficient for the workforce and offers some suggestions about how the current situation has come about.

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In this 30 minute podcast, Steve Davis talks with Tom Karmel, Erica Smith and Damian Oliver on insights from research into apprenticeships. Interested in the story behind the numbers, Tom discusses the findings from his work on individual completion rates that show occupation and employers' size matters, with the implication being that the relationship between employer and apprentice is critical. Erica talks about the all too often unspoken expectations of apprentices and employers: the psychological contract. She finds that writing down these expectations at the start of an apprenticeship does help all parties. Damian examines whether pre-apprenticeship programs deliver on their promise of improved retention rates and finds their impact varies by occupation and prior education level. Implications for policy-makers and training providers are drawn out throughout the podcast. Show less

Traineeships are apprenticeship-like training arrangements that were initiated in Australia in 1985. They were designed to introduce apprenticeship training to a broader range of industries, occupation and individuals; they are available in occupations outside the traditional trades and crafts. Many companies use them on a large scale, some recruiting their entire shop floor workforce as trainees. This article uses findings from a national project on traineeships in six industry areas to examine the ways in which employers adopt them and the factors which affect their take-up across industries and enterprises.

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While the Australian apprenticeship and traineeship system is currently strong, the overall strength belies some areas of weakness. One of these areas is the uneven nature of demand from applicants for positions as apprentices and trainees, which means that some industries, occupations and employers struggle to find enough applicants while others are over-subscribed. While apprenticeships or traineeships in some occupations are attractive to applicants and companies are over-subscribed, other occupations and/or companies offering positions within those occupations find it difficult to attract applicants of a suitable calibre. This paper reports on a research project undertaken during 2010, with 21 employers who employed apprentices and trainees. The different recruitment strategies and outcomes of the companies are described and the possible reasons for companies' apparent success or failure to attract suitable applicants are discussed. Some suggestions for future policy and practice at company, regional and national level are offered.

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The phrase ‘skilled work’ is often used to describe only those jobs that have traditional apprenticeships attached to them. The dangers of this outdated way of perceiving skill have been all too apparent in the recent debates over migration and international students, where it has been easy for influential commentators to affect government policy in ways that are detrimental to the service industries. This project seeks to challenge such notions of skill and realign the way that Australian policy makers, analysts and industry stakeholders think about skill. It will consider why relevant Australian policy-makers and practitioners think some jobs are skilled and others are not. Furthermore, this project will move towards a superior way of looking at skill by developing a conceptual framework for examining and analysing skill in jobs specifically for the service industries. By producing an initial exploration of the topics this project is intended to function as a pilot for a future project that will involve comparisons with other industry areas and conduct additional research. The aims of this pilot project are to: provide an initial critical account of the attitudes towards skill that are held by different stakeholder groups in the training and workplace relations systems; involve stakeholder groups in the development of an evidence-based multiple-frame model that can be used to examine skill; validate the multiple-frame model in a range of jobs and service industry areas, and verify its utility for policy development; and shape the multiple-frame model into a practical tool for trial use in policy and practice as well as a theoretical model.

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As with any contract of employment, the mutual expectations of the employer and the apprentice/trainee are very important. Apprenticeships and traineeships have greater expectations than other employment contracts of employment because of the training component of the contract. This paper reports on some of the findings of a major NCVER-funded national project examining mutual expectations in apprenticeships and traineeships through the concept of the psychological contract. The paper focuses on the differences between employers and apprentices/trainees, in the expectations each party has of the other and in the extent to which the expectations are perceived to have been met.

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This paper looks at apprenticeship learning and training from a new standpoint - the psychological contract. The notion of the psychological contract is commonly used in the human resource management field to understand the nature of employment relationships. It has not previously been applied to apprenticeships in any systematic manner. This paper reports on a research project that applied a pre-existing instrument to apprentices and employers and also included qualitative case studies in nine companies.

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This research examines the ‘psychological contract’ or the unwritten expectations of employers and employees in an employment relationship. The particular aim of this study was to discover whether mismatched expectations have any effect on retention in apprenticeships and traineeships. The research indicated that overall there was a very high level of agreement on the obligations of the two major parties to the employment contract. In most cases these were the same obligations as exist in any employment contract, but with a much greater emphasis on training as an obligation on both sides. The provision of training was seen as the most important obligation of employers, while serious attention to learning was seen as apprentices’ and trainees’ most important obligation, second only to attendance and punctuality. The set of training obligations overall rated higher scores than the set of employment obligations. Paying greater attention to the areas perceived as deficient, such as employers providing specific time for training, fair treatment and resources to do the job, may be a means of improving retention. Show less

When [vocational education and training] VET in schools in Australia was introduced in its current iteration in the 1990s, it was primarily designed for students in the post-compulsory years of schooling - Years 11 and 12. However, the possible advantages of VET for students in at-risk groups prone to early school leaving has led to its adoption lower down the secondary school. This introduction of VET into the junior years of schooling is a controversial topic and researchers have approached the issues from a wide range of theoretical standpoints. This paper reports on a research project that gathered together data from the literature, policies and practices in state and territory education systems, and overseas countries’ experiences relating to the advantages and disadvantages of offering VET in schools to students in their junior years of high school. The complexity and diversity of opinions and research results are explored in this paper, and are summarised in a table that represents the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of this particular policy initiative with reference to the needs of students, schools and others.

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