Review - Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research

Germany shares with several other European communities the strong tradition of the role of the social
partners in social and economic policy. This is especially strong within the VET sector where the
industry chambers have been the core agencies in the large German apprenticeship system—the dual
system.
New Zealand
New Zealand has a single level of government and has not devolved any responsibility for education
and training to local government, as has happened in the UK. It shares similar governance and
political structures and cultures with Australia, including a relatively adversarial party political
culture. However, the introduction of a proportional representation electoral system has weakened this
culture with governments needing to be formed through alliances of parties and independent members
of parliament.
New Zealand made early investments in open market economic policies in the 1980s and these have
continued, perhaps in a slightly diluted form. As in Australia, they have had an impact on the VET
sector and encouraged private investment in and provision of VET. On the other hand, a relatively
centralised approach to VET governance has been taken, especially through qualifications and a large
central qualifications authority.
Singapore
Singapore has a unitary government and has been dominated by a single party since gaining
independence from Britain. It has maintained a relatively high level of state intervention in social and
economic policy including recent investments in export oriented industry hubs. It also has a relatively
high level of intervention in the labour market though immigration, wages policy and other forms of
regulation. The country has a strong national development agenda and given the absence of natural
resources, investment in human capital is a priority. Despite the political dominance of the Peoples’
Action Party, which has a trade union base, Singapore has minimal industrial regulations including
wage regulation. Rather it has adopted a strategy of increasing worker skill levels as a means of
giving them greater wage bargaining capacity.
The traditional concentration of VET provision on state agencies has been moderated with the
establishment of the Workforce Development Agency and its agenda of demand led VET. However,
this leadership is located with the workforce rather than enterprises.
United Kingdom
The UK is a unified state with significant levels of devolution of sovereignty to regional governments
in the three nations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The patterns of devolution are not
consistent historically or in the structures of legislative and administrative authority of the regional
parliaments and assemblies. However, the re-establishment of the Northern Ireland assembly and the
establishment of the parliament in Scotland and the assembly in Wales have been within the past
decade.
In comparison to many of its European neighbours, the UK has had a tradition of limited state
intervention in the economy, albeit with the establishment of a welfare state and a degree of
nationalisation and subsequent privatisation of key industries. This has been expressed in the
maintenance of a strong tradition of voluntarism in VET, especially in England. Over the past three
decades there has been a greater centralisation of policy making and administrative authority,
including the reduction of the role of local government in education and training. More recently there
has been some rebuilding of this role.
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