Are TAFE institutes learning organisations?

In order to obtain and sustain a competitive advantage in a knowledge economy, organisations need to engage people at all levels within the organisation in learning new processes. Senge's seminal work of 1990, The Fifth Discipline, has given rise to a plethora of interest in what has become a way of thinking about organisational capabilities and referred to as an organisation's capacity as a learning organisation. Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell (1991) describe a learning organisation as one 'that facilitates the learning of all its members and consciously transforms itself and its context.' The National Training Reform Agenda (NTRA) in Australia has seen the TAFE sector undergo both political and economic transformations as it has attempted to respond to this very complex agenda. As an organisation TAFE plays a significant role in the development of both individual and organisational workplace knowledge. But is TAFE of itself a learning organisation, and if so, how successful is it? This question was posed to a small focus group of senior TAFE managers in Queensland concerning their teaching staff and this paper evaluates their responses. Recent work on the attributes of learning organisation was used to provide a framework for discussion.

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Volume one of these proceedings is indexed at TD/TNC 68.31, volume two is indexed at TD/TNC 68.32 and individual papers may be found from TD/TNC 68.17 to TD/TNC 68.29 and from TD/TNC 68.33 to TD/TNC 68.100 Show less