Reinventing service delivery: case studies of TAFE institutes meeting industry needs and government goals

This paper describes how TAFE effectively meets industry needs and government goals, based on five case studies that are set out after the paper, and other related evidence. The paper performs three major functions. First, it links the findings from the five case studies to a body of work by the author over the last six years, to show that the five case studies represent a continuation and refinement of TAFE's ability to flexibly meet industry and government needs. Second, the paper analyses this flexibility in terms of contemporary business research about how progressive service organisations are innovative, value-creating and client-focused. The discussion shows that TAFE institutes have a capacity to redefine their service delivery to meet changing and challenging needs of industry and government. Third, the paper links these qualitative case studies about the advanced capacity of TAFE institutes to a three-year nationwide collection of quantitative data about TAFE staff capability. The quantitative data indicates that staff capability is high, and this finding helps to explain the achievements of TAFE recorded not only in the case studies in this publication but also in over 75 other TAFE-industry case studies prepared by the author in recent years.

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