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In 2012, the Australian Government lifted previously imposed limits on the funding of bachelor-degree students at public universities. This new system was called ‘demand driven’ because it allowed universities to respond to student demand and allowed more students to benefit from higher education. On 12 November 2013 the Minister for Education appointed a review panel to look at and make recommendations in relation to the demand driven funding arrangements. The panel looked at the impacts of the demand driven system and whether it is increasing participation, improving access to students from poorer backgrounds and rural and regional areas, and meeting the skill needs of the economy. It explored whether there were any adverse impacts on quality and considered the long term sustainability of the system.

The report found that public universities have responded well to changes under the demand driven system and improved access for all students. It found the new system has allowed universities to be more responsive to student needs, driven innovation and lifted quality. The reviewers made 19 findings and 17 recommendations, including extending the demand driven system to diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees, and to private universities and non-university higher education providers such as TAFEs. The reviewers believe that extending the demand driven system will expand opportunities for students, and lead to further innovation in courses and modes of delivery, and in the quality of teaching and graduates.

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Demand-driven funding was implemented in Australia with the aim of increasing the proportion of the population with a bachelor level (or higher) qualification, driven by predicted shortfalls in demand for university educated graduates over the coming decade. While the easing of previous enrolment restrictions was welcomed by some, concerns were expressed over whether student choice would be sufficiently reflective of employer demand. This paper examines the areas of study in which the growth in admissions has occurred and the implications for graduate outcomes and skills supply.

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This research paper documents what happened during the demand driven university system before it ceased in 2017. The study explores what happened to young Australians during the demand driven system using administrative, population and longitudinal survey data. The study addresses two research questions: (1) Who are the 'additional students' who enrolled in university under the demand driven system who would not have had the opportunity in earlier periods, and what are the academic and labour market outcomes they achieved?; (2) To what extent was the demand driven system more accessible to people from under-represented 'equity groups'? And what factors predict the under-representation of these groups?

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In this publication, the author shows that the formal way of vocational education and training (VET) in rural areas often ignores the illiterate, the less education, and the poor. The author demonstrates that VET programs need to be demand-driven and consider the socioeconomic aspects of particular regions. Therefore, the significance of the study at grassroots level helps customize VET programs to respond to the demand of the individual vocational training needs of rural people by keeping their endogenous needs at the centre of vocational skill development process. The findings and lessons learnt from action research are also intensively discussed as guiding principles for demand-driven approaches from the learner/societal perspectives.

Edited excerpt from publication.

The contents are as follows: Historical overview of vocational education and training in India; Demand-driven approaches in VET; Developing curriculum for sewing vocational training; Competency-based sewing curriculum development; Evaluation of competency-based sewing vocational training. Show less

The postpandemic economic recovery critically depends on whether the thousands of Canadians who have been laid off are able to regain employment. The 2021 federal budget announced additional funding for skills training and employment supports for those most affected by the economic shutdown. However, there is still a great deal of skepticism about the effectiveness of government-provided training for unemployed and underemployed workers. In this study, the authors argue that doubts about the usefulness of spending public dollars on skills training are based on outdated perceptions stemming from past evaluations of large-scale training programs whose methodology is now being questioned. As part of their review of over 30 years worth of evidence from the United States and other countries, the authors identify the problems associated with these earlier evaluations and highlight the more nuanced conclusions of research led by practitioners in the past decade on what sort of training works, under what conditions and for whom.

The key insight from this research is that government-sponsored skills training can be effective, and that it is most effective when it is aligned with employers' needs and delivers the skills that are in demand in local labour markets. Especially promising are two demand-informed training models that have been adopted widely in the US: sector-based training and Career Pathways. Looking at the effects of these approaches to training on participants' employment prospects and earnings, the authors point to key factors that help explain their success, notably establishing close collaboration with employers to identify in-demand skills, carefully selecting training candidates interested in entering specific sectors, ensuring flexibility in training program delivery, and providing wraparound supports such as child care and career advice to mitigate the barriers to training faced by working-age adults. The authors conclude that the sector-based and Career Pathways training models could play an important role in Canada's labour market policy response to the [Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)] pandemic. However, leveraging these models to their full potential presents challenges for policy-makers, researchers and practitioners.

To better align Canada's skills development systems with employers' needs and changing labour markets, the authors recommend that policy-makers actively explore the feasibility of applying these models in the Canadian context; test and scale up those that show promise; and commit to learning what works. Building the necessary infrastructure, including strong networks among training providers and employers, and producing up-to-date labour market information will also be important.

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This study evaluates the employment effects of a publicly-run national technical vocational education training program in Brazil that explicitly takes input from firms in determining the location, scale, and skill content of courses offered. Using exogenous course capacity restrictions, the study finds that those completing the course following receipt of a course offer have an 8.6 per cent increase in employment over the year following course completion. These effects come from previously unemployed trainees who find employment at non-requesting firms. The demand-driven program's effects are larger and statistically distinguishable from those of a broader and institutionally-similar publicly-administered skills training program run at the same time that did not take input from firms.

The study finds that the demand-driven program better aligned skill training with future aggregate occupational employment growth - suggesting the input from firms captured meaningful information about growth in skill demand. Courses offered in occupations that grew more over the year following requests exhibited larger employment effects, explaining the effectiveness of the demand-driven model.

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This paper examines the changing face of electrical apprenticeships in Australia, considering both the cohort of new apprentices and the qualification itself. Understanding the needs of apprentices, expressed through cohort demographics, and the needs of employers, expressed through the performance standards in Training Package qualifications, is necessary to ensure training is demand driven and meets the needs of stakeholders.

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While the article in the UNEVOC Forum, no. 4 focuses on the role and contribution that [technical and vocational education and training] TVET must make to sustainable development, the present article describes the background to the assessment, which will reach its culmination at the meeting in Bonn, of recent TVET policy reform in the Member States. The content of the meeting's substantive sessions devoted to the assessment is also concisely explained.

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This report aims to provide information on trends, policy and performance in Australian higher education. Chapter one explains how higher education is defined in Australia, the different types of higher education providers, and what makes universities distinctive among higher education providers. Chapter two reports on student trends including enrolment numbers, courses chosen, and the mix of students on campus. Chapter three looks at researchers in Australian universities, what subjects they research, and how much they publish. Chapter four provides information on how higher education is funded, including overall levels of funding, the income-contingent [Higher Education Loan Program] HELP student loan scheme, and the organisation of research funding. Chapter five outlines how per student funding levels are determined, and how student places are distributed between higher education providers. Chapter six describes the expanding scope of the Commonwealth Government in higher education, the key government departments, and the higher education interest groups. Chapter seven covers academic standards, student engagement and satisfaction, and graduate employment and earnings. Chapter eight examines shortages of graduates, the quality of university research, the broader public benefits of higher education, and public satisfaction with Australian universities. This edition contains the following sections, which are entirely new or have content that is significantly changed from the 2012 edition: section 1.4 on the non-academic workforce; sections 5.2 and 8.1, which offer a preliminary assessment of how the demand-driven undergraduate funding system is going; section 6.3 on higher education interest groups; section 7.3.1 on graduate employment; section 7.3.2 on graduate income; and section 8.3 on the additional tax paid by graduates and other public benefits.

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SKILL-UP Programme is a joint effort of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs aimed to help the ILO Member States enhance their skills systems to take advantage of new opportunities offered by emerging global drivers of change relating to increased digitalization, international trade integration, technological change, large international migration flows, climate change, and demographics, among others. The SKILL-UP country projects are located in Ghana, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Malawi, Senegal and Tanzania.

Skill-UP Ghana aims to move the [technical and vocational education and training] TVET system from a supply to a demand-driven system by building on existing structures and strengthening institutional resources to promote a better understanding of the skills demanded in economic sectors. Agriculture is a critical sector for the Ghanaian economy; in terms of the number of people employed in the sector, its role to meet local demand and its export potential. The agriculture sector is concerned with the production and processing of crops, raising animals and harvesting fish and other animals in a farm or in their natural habitats. Skills mismatch and shortages are a common challenge. In response, the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has established Sector Skills Bodies (SSBs) for the agriculture, construction and tourism and hospitality sectors with the aim of establishing a demand-led TVET system in these sectors. To support their establishment, the ILO worked with the SSBs to develop sector skills strategies through applying ILO's Skills for Trade and Economic Diversification (STED) approach in order to better align skills development to labour market needs. This document sets out that strategy and outlines a range of proposed actions to address the skill needs of the agriculture sector identified through the process by the SSB members.

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