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The redesign of the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector in the early 1990s changed the way the sector has been traditionally structured, organised and most importantly financed and delivered. This VET policy change led to a market model of education and a subsequent increase in the participation of private VET providers and international students in the sector. This article draws on the study of situated realities influencing international students in private VET providers in Melbourne Australia, to show through students' narratives, the consequences for international students' participation and how their outcomes were influenced. It also draws on the notion of social structure as systems of human relations amongst social positions to show that while international students' educational outcomes are complex, the market model of education constitutes the mechanisms, resources, powers and constraints that motivate them to act in the way they do.

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This edition of the ITECAustralia magazine showcases what our membership is able to achieve when it comes together. In many respects, the edition is a tribute to the contribution of so many individuals to our work. Articles include: Members that are setting the agenda as regulatory and funding reform gets underway / Troy Williams; ITECA's new strategic plan empowers members with information and influence; TEQSA exploring opportunities to support cyber security across the independent sector; A new skills funding agreement is being negotiated: what will it mean for the sector?; The independent vocational education and training sector's record of excellence; Collaboration driving Victoria's skill system / Gayle Tierney; Independent sector gives Australia its newest university: Avondale University; The higher education regulator's court action against online academic cheating service; Queensland's Skills Assure funding arrangements create confusion and delays; International student return in the era of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic; New South Wales to offer longer skills funding contracts for high performing training providers; Tertiary education measures: 2021 Australian Government budget; CEP and CEM credentials denote trainer, assessor and manager professional excellence; Qualifications reform addressing the changing skills needs of individuals and employers; An International Education Commissioner to drive the sector's recovery from COVID-19?; and Skills organisations taking innovative approaches to qualifications design and delivery.

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The coming federal election will be held in a context where our community and businesses are recovering from the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic, and perhaps surprisingly, the nation faces skills shortages. What has become clear is that Australia's economic prosperity is highly dependent on a skilled and educated workforce. Articles in this edition include: Student choice should be the focus of the debate in the coming federal election / Troy Williams; Bachelor of Game Development offered by newest higher education provider; 2022 federal budget continues a strong commitment to skills training; Government view / Stuart Robert; Opposition view / Richard Marles; Human Services Skills Organisation publishes new employer skills training guide; Victoria's independent skills training sector shines; Interview: Torrens University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alywn Louw; VET in schools remote, rural and regional delivery consultation; Boosting apprenticeship commencements wage support boost; VERTO: the 'one-stop-shop' for employment services and training; HRC releases updated principles for international students' rights; Higher education regulator responds to the National Student Safety Survey; Employers rank independent skills training providers first; New report unpacks what matters to providers in quality skills training [report available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 147.03]; New South Wales skills in need list consultations; Australian Government's new National Microcredentials Framework [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 147.853]; and RTO performance and excellence in Queensland.

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International education, Victoria's single largest export sector, was worth $13.7 billion in 2019, and supported around 79,000 Victorian jobs. In 2019, Victoria accounted for close to a third of all international student enrolments in Australia.

The impact of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic on the international education sector has been severe. Modelling by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research indicates that Victorian international education export revenue will decrease by around $5.8 billion in 2020.

This plan outlines a comprehensive package of initiatives to reset and stimulate the sector and position Victoria for recovery. It lays the foundation for a longer-term International Education Strategy from 2021 [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 155.165].

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Scholars who analyse the policies that provide for the rights of international students have tended to focus on challenges posed by racism, discrimination and unjustified stereotyping. This discussion has focussed overwhelmingly on the higher education sector but recently has begun to be extended to vocational and training education (VET). We enter this emergent debate by addressing the finding that when international VET students studying in Australia are interviewed about their rights experience, they are prone to focus on their status as consumers of the commodities they purchase in order to gain a high-quality international education experience. Given this response, we examine how Australian officials provide for international students' consumer rights, analyse the views of international students studying in Australia, and explain why the need to provide for the consumer rights of these sojourners is bound to remain a perennial concern for host governments and institutions.

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This plan builds on the 'International education short-term recovery plan 2020/21' [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 155.164], outlining a vision, goals and actions to support the sector's recovery, and backed by funding of $52.9 million through to 2025. The plan's aims and actions are outlined under five pillars: (1) the student experience; (2) employability and student return on investment; (3) promotion of Victoria's education offering; (4) market access and global connections; and (5) partnerships and collaboration for a strong sector.

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There is an increasing volume of international students enrolled in the vocational education and training sector in many countries. However, questions of ethnicity and identity in VET have not been explicitly examined in relation to this group. This paper offers some valuable insights into the complex and varying ways in which ethnicity is interrelated to the issues of identity of international students who have non-citizen status in the host country. It draws on a four-year qualitative study funded by the Australian Research Council that includes 105 interviews with international students and fieldwork in VET institutes across three states of Australia: New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The research highlights forms of injustice including non-recognition of skills due to skin colour, disadvantage with regard to employment opportunities, being positioned as deficient in the classroom and workplace, unjust stereotypes and violation of rights. The research also reports international students' specific strategies in exercising both individual and collective agency to seek a 'space' for comfort, mutual support and communal strength and to confront injustices. The paper concludes with some practical recommendations for institutions to support international students' agency and build an inclusive environment for international students in VET.

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This article is part of a special issue entitled 'VET, race and ethnicity', guest edited by James Avis, Kiran Mirchandani and Paul Warmington. Show less

The reconstruction of the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector into a competitive training market, which led to the participation of international students and commercial for-profit private VET providers, has until recently focused on the importance of international students to the national economy whilst ignoring the students' important educational characteristics and the other benefits that accrue to Australia. Drawing on views and perspectives of students, teachers, training managers and quality assurance auditors, this article presents an analysis of the VET provider-level processes, which have contributed to limited discursive constructions of the identities of international students in private VET providers in Melbourne. It argues that there is an urgent need for a rethinking of the way international students are conceptualised and represented in the competitive training market environment.

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There were 171,237 international student enrolments in the [vocational education and training] VET sector towards the end of 2011 (AEI, 2012). Students from the Asian region constitute 85 per cent of international VET students. This paper focuses on how VET teachers have adopted the intercultural approach to teaching international students and indeed all VET learners. The intercultural approach can manifest in the ways teachers design activities to provide international students with opportunities to validate their understanding of the vocational practices in their home countries and integrate this source of knowledge into teaching and learning. Another dimension of the intercultural approach is related to how teachers can draw on different strategies to foster the interaction between international and domestic students and support their development of intercultural competence. In light of the intercultural approach, students are enabled to develop their comparative and reflective perspective on the different vocational practices as well as language and cultural differences. The development of these important attributes and skills is integral for students to engage with the highly interconnected cultural contexts with which they interact during their study and perhaps find themselves in their future workplaces (Hiller & Wozniak, 2009).

This paper draws on a larger study involving 150 interviews with international students, VET teachers, student coordinators and managers from 25 VET institutes in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales. The research is funded by the Australian Research Council under the Discovery Grant Scheme. The teachers who participated in this study were from a range of fields including cookery, hairdressing, hospitality management, law, finance, accounting, building and carpentry. Semi-structured interviews with open ended questions were undertaken with the teacher respondents during 2010 and 2011. The interviews aimed to document teachers’ perspectives on the relevance of competency-based training in teaching international students and how they have adapted their teaching content and pedagogy to address the learning characteristics of international students. This paper focuses only on the emergence of the intercultural approach that teacher respondents have adopted in teaching VET students whilst the suitability of competency-based training to teaching international students is addressed in another paper arising from this research.

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The purpose of this study is to build an evidence base to support policy development, strategic marketing, institutional support and communication about the transition from study to employment. In particular, it aims to address how working in Victoria can enhance a student's international employability or add to Victoria and Australia's skills base. The intention is to work towards formulating a distinctive value proposition to encourage international students to choose Victoria as their preferred study destination.

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