Occasional Paper - TAFE Directors Australia

19 

Conference speakers 

Monday 13 September 2010 

Welcome to Country: Aunty Joy Wandin Murphy, 

The Senior Elder of the Wurunjderi People 

Welcome by TDA: Bruce Mackenzie, TDA Chair 

MC: Jo Pearson, Media Strategies Pty Ltd 

TDA10 Gala Dinner Speaker: Don Watson 

ROBIN SHREEVE 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR LEESA WHEELAHAN 

ANGELA HUTSON 

DR TOM KARMEL 

KYM PEAKE 

BRUCE MACKENZIE PSM 

PROFESSOR GREG CRAVEN 

PROFESSOR LESLEYANNE HAWTHORNE 

MARK CULLY 

LIU JIANTONG 

WORLD CAFE – IAN COLLEY 

KATHRYN CAMPBELL

20 

The ferocious tiger: 

What should quality mean for 

a 21st century TAFE institute 

Robin Shreeve 

CEO, Skills Australia 

Robin Shreeve has worked in the skills 

sector for over 30 years in Australia and 

England. He is currently the Chief Executive 

of Skills Australia, an independent body 

advising the Australian Government on 

workforce development and workforce skill 

needs. 

Prior to this Robin was Principal of a Central 

London College of Further and Higher 

Education. From 1989 to 2005 Robin was 

Deputy Director-General for TAFE in the 

NSW Department of Education and 

Training. From 1995 to 2000 he was 

Director (Principal) of the North Coast 

Institute of TAFE NSW. Robin was 

foundation Chair of the Board of TAFE 

Global Pty Ltd, an international project 

management company set up following 

TAFE NSW’s success as the official training 

partner for the Sydney 2000 Olympic and 

Paralympic Games. 

Many TAFE institutes assert that they are quality 

or even world class providers. But how can they 

publicly demonstrate this when there is little 

outcome data publicly available at the individual 

provider level to support these claims 

External bodies such as the Organisation for 

Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 

confirm that at the systemic level the Australian 

tertiary sector delivers vocational training that is 

valued by its industry and individual customers 

(Hoeckel et al. 2008). National and State Training 

Awards recognise that there are many exemplary 

vocational education and training (VET) providers 

across public, private, community and enterprisebased 

Registered Training Organisations (RTOs). 

However, recently there has been closer public 

scrutiny on the overall quality of the VET system as 

a result of media reports on the poor experiences of 

some international students. Australian VET is being 

challenged to demonstrate quality of the whole 

system in order to drive excellence and restore public 

confidence. 

An expression of action on this concern has been 

the agreement to establish a new National VET 

Regulator that is likely to be operational from 2012. 

While this is a very welcome development, more 

needs to be done. 

The issues affecting quality in the current VET system 

include inconsistent regulation, variable assessment 

practices and insufficient transparency. While there 

are undoubtedly many good VET providers operating 

across Australia, it is difficult to demonstrate the 

public value, or the value to employers, of the 

breadth of activities undertaken by the VET sector 

without evidence-based information in the public 

domain. For example, individual providers maintain 

internal records and data of various performance

TAFE IN THE YEAR OF THE TIGER 

21 

measures, however providers are not legislatively 

bound to publish their information. 

Inconsistent regulation 

Quality of the VET sector is regulated by the 

Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF), but 

there is inconsistency in interpretation and auditing 

of the AQTF across state and territory jurisdictions. 

The components of the AQTF include conditions 

and standards governing the initial and continuing 

registration of RTOs, quality indicators, standards for 

state and territory registering bodies and voluntary 

excellence criteria. In addition, a risk management 

framework, which is now part of the new AQTF 

arrangements, aims to focus the regulatory effort 

on those RTOs that pose the greatest risk to quality. 

Consistency across the whole VET system would 

guarantee that a Certificate I in one state is of the 

same quality in other states of Australia. It is also 

important to remember that while nationally 

consistent regulation is a step in the right direction, 

to be effective it needs to be less bureaucratic and 

not unnecessarily burden high performing VET 

providers. 

Variable assessment practices 

Concerns have been raised about variation in 

assessment practices across the VET system and 

between qualifications (NQC 2008, p. 5). The 

National Quality Council (NQC) has established a 

Quality of Assessment Action Group to develop 

strategies to improve the quality of assessment 

practices within the VET sector. Its final report is due 

by September 2010 (TVET forthcoming). 

Another issue that has affected confidence in 

the quality of VET qualifications is assessment 

moderation (NQC 2008). Better moderation 

processes and standards should be developed and 

implemented in a manner that ensures independent 

scrutiny and consistency across RTOs, industries and 

jurisdictions. Among possible options to address 

this issue is for the AQTF to make assessment 

moderation and validation compulsory. Further 

consideration and public discussion should be 

undertaken to establishing a formal assessment 

moderation body as part of the establishment of 

the National VET Regulator currently under way in 

Australia. 

At the core of the VET qualifications system is the 

training package. There is growing concern from 

industry about inconsistent competency standards, 

particularly in relation to institution-based 

programs. Recent work by the NQC has focused 

on addressing these concerns (NQC 2009, p. 7). 

Critical to achieving better quality and higher levels 

of confidence in Australian VET involves analysis 

and identification of the most effective means to 

improve assessment practices. 

Insufficient transparency 

Public reporting of national data and performance 

indicators is available at the national level, however 

individual provider information is not. Therefore, 

there is a strong case that if little or no public 

information is available on an individual VET 

provider, how can quality be demonstrated 

Under the AQTF, individual RTOs are required 

to collect, use and report data on three key 

performance indicators (KPIs) (AQTF 2007): 

1. competency completion – measuring the 

rate of qualification and module completion, based 

on data provided by RTOs on the previous calendar 

year’s number

22 


2. learner satisfaction – measuring learner 

engagement, perceptions of the quality of training 

and resources available and the support they receive 

3. employer satisfaction – measuring employer 

perceptions of learner competency, relevance to 

work and further training, and the overall quality of 

training. 

From July 2010 reporting against the three KPIs 

become mandatory. However, the performance of 

individual VET providers is not publicly available. 

As part of the 2010–11 Budget, the Australian 

Government announced that it would establish 

a MySkills website, an online database to inform 

students or potential students of their VET options 

to help them find the provider that best meets their 

needs. It will also allow students to make more 

informed choices about how to strengthen their 

skills base and will link with other sites such as the 

MyUni website. In the longer term, it is expected 

that with the inclusion of student outcome data, the 

site should also achieve improvements in the quality 

of training by showing providers where they excel 

and where improvements can be made 

(DEEWR 2010). 

While MySkills will publish valuable data, it will be 

limited to information relating to RTOs that receive 

public funding for accredited training delivery. The 

scope of public information on MySkills should be 

available for all VET providers, particularly since 

Australian providers operate under a national 

infrastructure. Perhaps then VET providers would be 

held accountable for their actions. 

Greater transparency of outcome information will 

not only enable students and employers to make 

informed choices of provider, the evidence is that it 

positively impacts on provider behaviour. In England 

where the publication of qualification course 

and success rates is mandatory, the percentage 

of students completing whole courses has gone 

up from 50% to 75% in the last few years (Skills 

Australia 2010). 

Summary 

While the Australian VET system has some 

exemplary providers and prominent amongst 

these are some TAFE institutes, more can be done 

to increase the overall quality of VET. There are 

undoubtedly some excellent practices being applied 

but without nationally consistent regulation, clear 

assessment practices, and better accountability, the 

overall quality of the VET system will continue to 

remain unclear. In my opinion, TAFE institutes should 

be more proactive in the pursuit for change – one 

simple way would be to get on the front foot and 

voluntarily publish individual provider information. 

This would go a long way to confirm a growing 

public confidence in the system. 

References 

Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) 2007, AQTF essential 

standards for registration, 

www.training.com.au/. 

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) 

2010, www.deewr.gov.au/Department/Budget/Documents/ 

FactSheet10BudgetMySkills-JS.pdf. 

Hoeckel, K, Field, S, Justesen, TR & Kim, M 2008, Learning for jobs: OECD 

reviews of vocational education and training, Australia, November, 

www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/11/41631383.pdf. 

National Quality Council (NQC) 2008, Investigation into industry 

expectations of vocational education and training assessment: 

final report, June, www.training.com.au/documents/NQC_VET_ 

Assessment_Report.pdf. 

National Quality Council (NQC) 2009, Quality assessment practices, 

Stage 1 report, www.nqc.tvetaustralia.com.au/nqc_publications. 

Skills Australia 2010, Forging a vision for Australian vocational education 

and training: a discussion paper on the future of the VET system, 

Canberra, ACT. 

TVET n.d., ‘NQC quality of assessment action group’, www.nqc.tvetaustralia. 

com.au/about_nqc/action_groups/quality_of_assessment.

The toothless tiger: 

Are competency-based qualifications relevant 

in a 21st century knowledge society 

23 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR 

LEESA WHEELAHAN 

LH Martin Institute, University of Melbourne 

Leesa Wheelahan is an associate professor 

at the LH Martin Institute, University of 

Melbourne. Her research interests include 

tertiary education policy and practice and 

student equity. She is particularly interested 

in the development of ‘mixed-sector’ 

tertiary education institutions and led an 

NCVER project on higher education in TAFE. 

Leesa is also interested in the nature of VET 

qualifications and competency-based 

training and training packages. Her PhD on 

the role of knowledge in vocational 

qualifications led to her book, Why 

knowledge matters in curriculum: a social 

realist argument. As well as teaching VET 

teachers in different universities, Leesa has 

been a TAFE teacher and worked in 

academic development and policy in a 

dual-sector university. 

She is leading a project on the quality of 

VET teaching, teacher education 

qualifications and continuing professional 

development. 

The putative purpose of competency-based training 

(CBT) is that which will deliver the skills and 

knowledge that Australian industry needs in an 

increasingly competitive international economy. 

Its introduction was part of broader reforms to 

vocational education and training (VET) that were 

designed to achieve two objectives: 

• To align educational outcomes with national 

economic priorities by aligning the outcomes 

of learning with industry requirements; and, 

to increase efficiency of education systems by 

ensuring that all learning that contributes to 

competency outcomes could be credentialed, 

including informal and non-formal learning. 

• To contribute to equity. CBT is meant to 

credential the skills that people already have, 

provide them with access to new skills, and 

support them in pathways, particularly for 

disadvantaged groups. 

The definition of competency has been ‘enhanced’ 

to accommodate concerns that previous definitions 

were atomistic and did not provide sufficient access 

to underpinning knowledge. The most recent 

definition of competency explains that: 

The broad concept of industry competency 

concerns the ability to perform particular tasks 

and duties to the standard of performance 

expected in the workplace. Competency 

requires the application of specified skills, 

knowledge and attitudes relevant to effective 

participation in an industry, industry sector or 

enterprise (DEEWR 2009). 

This paper argues that CBT has not effectively 

achieved its designated objectives, and that the 

‘enhanced’ definition, while being an improvement, 

does not solve the fundamental problem which 

is that it continues to tie knowledge to specific 

workplace tasks and roles.

24 


Unlike other Anglophone countries, Australia has 

a highly differentiated tertiary education system 

with CBT in VET, and curriculum in higher education. 

Differentiated systems are effective when they lead 

to different labour market destinations that draw 

on the different knowledge base of each sector. 

However: 

• VET graduates from diplomas and advanced 

diplomas often compete with bachelor 

graduates for the same positions, and diplomas 

are being replaced by degrees as the entry level 

qualification in many occupations (Foster et al. 

2007; Karmel & Cully 2009) 

• the ‘fit’ between qualifications and occupations 

is quite loose, except for regulated occupations. 

In 2008, only 30.3% of VET graduates reported 

that they were working in the occupation 

directly associated with their VET qualification 

(NCVER 2008, Table 7) 

• most workers do not move into a different 

occupational skill level post-training in VET, 

including over two-thirds of those in low paid 

occupations and 86% of those in higher paid 

occupations (Pocock 2009). 

It is difficult to sustain arguments for differentiated 

curriculum in VET and higher education when 

graduates compete for the same jobs. It is also 

difficult to argue that CBT results in efficiencies by 

training people for specific workplace tasks or roles 

when most people will not be employed in those 

jobs. And, it is difficult to sustain an argument that 

VET qualifications directly increase access to higher 

skilled occupations if this is measured by transition 

from a lower to a higher skill level. Yet these are the 

narrow purposes of VET qualifications as defined in 

policy, and these are how they should be measured. 

Outcomes for VET graduates from 2003–2009 show 

that the percentage in employment after training 

peaked in 2007 but otherwise was not much 

different; and, the percentage in further study after 

training declined by almost 8%. Demand for tertiary 

education declines with strong labour markets, but 

strong labour markets also in part account for the 

increase in employment outcomes. Some groups 

experienced little or no growth in employment 

during this period, particularly young people 

aged between 15–19 years. Their employment 

outcomes declined from 2001–2008 by almost 

3% and their further study outcomes declined by 

5%. Equity groups are over-represented in low level 

VET qualifications and languish in Certificates I and 

II which have appalling employment and further 

study outcomes. 

The new definition of CBT does not address the 

fundamental problem which is that learning 

outcomes are still based on workplace tasks and 

roles. This means that units of competency are based 

on a disaggregated view of the workplace, so that 

‘becoming competent’ consists of aggregations of 

workplace tasks and roles that have been defined 

independently of each other. Moreover, it is still 

a requirement that knowledge ‘should only be 

included if it refers to knowledge actually applied at 

work’ (DEEWR 2009). 

So, rather than providing students with access to 

the applied disciplinary knowledge that underpins 

occupational practice (as in the professions), 

they are only provided with contextually specific 

applications of knowledge. This is because 

knowledge is delocated from the applied disciplines 

and tied to specific workplace requirements. 

Students may be able to associate a contextually 

specific application of knowledge with a specific 

context, but it does not help them if they need


25 

to select a different application of knowledge, 

understand why they need to do this and not that, 

and creatively apply knowledge in new contexts. 

Students must be able to choose and they can only 

do this if they have access to the applied disciplines. 

Unless they have this access, knowledge is not 

under their control. CBT ties knowledge to work 

as it currently is and does not build capacity for 

the future. It also denies students access to the 

knowledge they need to study at a higher level in 

their field and thus, undermines the link between 

occupational and educational progression. Students 

also need access to theoretical knowledge so they 

can participate in debates and controversies in 

their occupational field of practice. They need to be 

able to develop critical perspectives if they are to 

contribute to innovation. 

VET qualifications need to prepare people for a wider 

range of workplace destinations and occupations 

rather than a specific focus on workplace tasks 

and roles. Society, communities, workplaces and 

individuals benefit when high proportions of 

the population have non-school qualifications 

and higher level qualifications, and we need to 

recognise that qualifications serve more than one 

purpose. Young people in particular need access 

to qualifications that will support them in their 

transition to adulthood as active, contributing 

members of society. However, this would require a 

wider view of education and access to an enriched 

curriculum that supports students to situate 

themselves in their occupation and to equip them 

with the capacities they need to participate as active 

citizens. 

References 

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations 2009, 

Training Package Development Handbook, viewed 24 April 2010, 

www.deewr.gov.au/Skills/Overview/Policy/TPDH/Pages/default.aspx. 

Foster, S, Delaney, B, Bateman, A & Dyson, C 2007, Higher-level vocational 

education and training qualifications: their importance in today’s 

training market, National Centre for Vocational Education Research, 

Adelaide, viewed 7 May 2008, www.ncver.edu.au/publications/1798. 

html. 

Karmel, T & Cully, M 2009, The demand for training, National Centre for 

Vocational Education Research, Adelaide, viewed 27 February 2009, 

www.ncver.edu.au/publications/2124.html. 

National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) 2008, Australian 

vocational education and training statistics: student outcomes 2008, 

NCVER, Adelaide, viewed 7 February 2009, www.ncver.edu.au/ 

statistic/publications/2083.html. 

Pocock, B 2009, Low-paid workers, changing patterns of work and life, and 

participation in vocational education and training: a discussion starter, 

National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Adelaide, viewed 

13 March 2009, www.ncver.edu.au/publications/2104.html.

26 

Tiger or pussycat: 

What’s in a name TAFE by any 

other name 

The East Gippsland TAFE brand 

strategy story: 

August 2009–August 2010 

East Gippsland TAFE drivers to examine our brand 

ANGELA HUTSON 

Chief Executive Officer, East Gippsland 

Institute of TAFE 

Angela has been CEO of East Gippsland 

TAFE for six years. She has a passion for 

people, places, new ways of working, 

community and industry engagement 

and polygamous organisational 

partnerships. She is also Vice-President of 

the Regional Hospital Board, Vice-Chair of 

the Regional Development Australia- 

Gippsland Committee, a member of the 

East Gippsland Economic Development 

Advisory Board and a Ministerial 

appointee to the TAFE Development 

Centre Board. Her last qualification was a 

Master in Organisational Leadership and 

her next one will be in Commercial 

Cookery – through TAFE, of course. She 

also holds a Grad Dip Bus (E&I), Grad Cert 

Enterprise Mgt, DipEd, and a BA. 

• Policy context is a given, for example, Securing 

jobs for your future – Skills for Victoria. 

• It is an opportune time to examine our brand in 

the context of full contestability. 

• We can’t rest on our laurels – what gave us 

success in the past will not guarantee our 

future. 

• We need to acknowledge our history, our 

success, our story, our experience but that is 

not enough. 

• We need a common language/message/script. 

• We need to promise to provide value rather 

than focusing on price. 

History 

It is thirty-six years since the Kangan Report called 

for TAFE to provide people with education to meet 

their freely chosen vocational needs. The report 

says TAFE’s job is not just to supply skilled labour 

for industry and commerce. All technical colleges 

became known as Technical and Further Education 

Colleges. Individual opportunity and social 

improvement became catch-cries and important 

philosophies. 

In the 1990s, as Vocational Education and Training 

(VET) became the term associated with the private 

and public components of the sector, which by 

now was an industry in itself, the national nature of 

training was strengthened. 

The TDA role is to position TAFE institutes as the 

major training brand delivering skills in Australia.


27 

Each state and territory has a different approach to 

the use of the TAFE descriptor. 

At the institute level, the role is to leverage off this 

brand or define their own. 

The Victorian TAFE Association (VTA) commissioned 

a quantitative research project and results were 

announced in April 2009: ‘Community Attitudes to 

TAFE’ – strong brand recognition – choose b/c of 

range of courses – for training and reskilling and b/c 

of location/proximity. 

Under the Education and Training Reform 

Amendment (Skills) Bill 2010 currently before the 

Victorian Parliament, there is an amendment to say 

that providers and other bodies which are not TAFE 

institutes may not give a misleading impression that 

they are. The purpose is to protect the TAFE ‘brand’. 

The bill aims to protect students from being misled 

into dealing with a provider, believing that it is a 

government TAFE institution when it is not. 

East Gippsland TAFE brand review 

process 

Commissioning a review of the East Gippsland TAFE 

brand represents an opportunity to be bold and 

achieve clear differentiation 

• Organisational brand name = emotive brand 

positioning 

• Organisational descriptor = education market 

context 

• Brand promise = benefits/value proposition 

• We have a logo not a brand 

• Road to nowhere 

• A frightening mask 

• A tree that time forgot 

Internal research – key messages 

Board mandate for corporate image to reflect vision 

of a dynamic professional organisation focused on 

revenue growth from new markets where we can 

promote areas of specialisation outside our region. 

Our Strategic Direction Statement necessitates a 

more global versus parochial brand strategy and 

corporate image. 

Strong pride in our service provision and internal 

culture is not reflected in attitudes towards corporate 

image and brand positioning: 

• East Gippsland TAFE has a disjointed and 

inconsistent corporate image which requires a 

cohesive brand strategy to leverage the relevant 

strengths of the master brand with sub brands 

• geographic and local community heritage 

are a double-edged sword providing emotive 

connection and relevance but at the same 

time East Gippsland TAFE has to be positioned 

as a more progressive organisation becoming 

established and more relevant in new markets 

to meet future growth objectives. 

The higher education market is highly competitive 

with a range of institutions employing sophisticated 

branding and marketing practices. 

External research – key messages 

Strong relationship with local business, key 

community and regional stakeholders: 

• seen as an organisation that is an instinctive 

part of the community and region 

• seen as a leader providing quality education 

services while playing a vital role in regional 

development. 

Seen to provide a high standard of services which 

are aligned with brand values identified by internal 

research:

28 


• flexible, responsive, individualised and success 

focused. 

Existing brand strategy and corporate image creates 

confusion and fails to capitalise on the leadership 

position that East Gippsland TAFE has within the 

community and region: 

• brand recognition is high but corporate image 

fails to convey brand values. 

Online research – key messages – 800+ 

participants 

• Specialisation and flexibility are the catalysts 

for study outside the local area. 

• Need to explore TAFE versus alternative new 

provider descriptors. 

• Predominant reason to study is to achieve 

skills and further qualifications to enhance 

employment and career opportunities. 

• Brand values must reflect flexibility and 

convenience for individual needs. 

• Brand attributes must focus on qualifications, 

skills and career start. 

• TAFE brand is strong as a provider of a broad 

range of services. 

• University brand is strong but cannot deliver 

the breadth of services. 

Brand descriptors 

TAFE brand reputation reflects values of ‘hands on 

skills development’ and ‘provides a broad range of 

skills education’. 

TAFE did not rate highly, seen as traditional and old 

fashioned. 

Tertiary Education Centre seen as reputable and 

broad ranging but didn’t evoke as clear a meaning 

as TAFE. 

TAFE has an established brand equity with clearly 

defined positioning, brand values and attributes: 

• clearly understood 

• strong resonance 

• diversity of skills 

• broader than TECH 

• practical hands on skills development 

• reputable provider of tertiary education 

• provides a broad range of skills. 

Summary 

a. Strong recognition and positive community 

awareness of TAFE. 

b. Recognition of recent Victorian regional TAFE 

campaign – ‘better hope she is TAFE qualified’. 

c. ‘Institute’ seen as polarising and evokes medical 

associations and clinics. 

d. TEC(H) associated with old technical based 

education/hands on. 

e. TEC – tertiary seen as higher education and a 

bit meaningless as a new descriptor. 

Decision making factors 

Qualitative and quantitative research validation 

given to the following attributes (benefits) of 

undertaking training/education at TAFE: 

• ‘An environment where I can excel and achieve’ 

• ‘Flexibility of education that fits my lifestyle’. 

Outcomes…a new brand strategy 

• Aspirational brand name which promises to tap 

into the goals, ambitions and drivers for career 

and personal development.


29 

• Overwhelming majority prefer an aspirational 

brand promise…dream-study-achieve. 

• Retaining the benefit of TAFE as the descriptor 

within an education market context. 

• Currently we are evaluating the following 

issues: legal, resource, political, and 

commissioning a design for our new brand 

strategy. 

References 

Australian Committee on Technical and Further Education (ACOTAFE) 1974, 

TAFE in Australia: report on needs in technical and further education, 

[Kangan Report], April, AGPS, Canberra, www.voced.edu.au/docs/ 

landmarks/TD_LMR_85_... 

Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development 2008, 

Securing jobs for your future: skills for Victoria, August, Victorian 

Government, Melbourne, www.skills.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/ 

pdf_file/0003/15969/Skills-Reform_web.pdf. 

Victorian TAFE Association (VTA) 2009, Community attitudes to TAFE, April, 

www.vta.vic.edu.au/.../Sue_Loukomitis_Community_Attitudes_ 

to_TAFE.ppt.

30 

Tiger stripes: 

What should performance 

benchmarks look like 

DR TOM KARMEL 

Managing Director, National Centre for 

Vocational Education Research 

Dr Karmel took up the position of 

Managing Director, National Centre for 

Vocational Education Research (NCVER) in 

August 2002. Prior to this position he held 

senior appointments in the Federal 

government areas of education, 

employment, labour market research and 

the Bureau of Statistics. His research 

interests have centred on the labour market 

and the economics of education, focusing 

on empirical modelling, and he has a 

particular interest in performance indicators 

both in higher education and vocational 

education and training. 

He has an honours degree in mathematical 

statistics (Flinders University), a Master of 

Economics and a doctorate from the 

Australian National University on the 

impact of increasing education levels on 

the Australian workforce. 

Introduction 

The National Centre for Vocational Education 

Research (NCVER) has been interested in publishing 

institutional level statistics for some time, and 

a number of statistical publications have been 

released that provide data for individual providers 

but without names. This limits their usefulness 

because the whole point of individual provider data 

is so that readers can make comparisons across 

institutions. The reason for NCVER’s current approach 

is that the current Vocational Education and Training 

(VET) data protocols proscribe the publication of 

data for individual providers without the permission 

of the provider. This protocol has meant that, unlike 

for higher education where tables of indicators have 

been the norm for many years, there has been a 

complete absence of performance indicators for the 

VET sector. 

The Commonwealth government signalled in the 

2010 Budget that this situation is about to change, 

with funding provided for the development of the 

MySkills website for VET providers. 

Performance indicators need attention on three 

fronts. The first is the range of indicators that should 

be considered. The second is the unit of analysis - 

the provider as a whole or individual subject area. 

The third is the issue of statistical reliability. 

Likely indicators 

We need to distinguish between context and 

performance indicators. The former provide useful 

context to the reader so that he or she has some 

feeling for the type of institution being referred to. 

Obvious context indicators include: 

• Measures of size (number of students, full 

year training equivalents [FYTEs], number of 

campuses)


31 

• Age distribution 

• Gender distribution 

• Fields of study distribution 

• Levels of study distribution 

• Percentage of full-time/part-time students 

• Percentage of students in various groups (for 

example, indigenous, disability, non-English 

speaking, regional distribution). 

Performance indicators by contrast need to focus on 

outcomes. Possibilities include: 

• Load pass rates 

• Qualification completion rates 

• Student satisfaction: overall satisfaction, 

teacher quality. assessment quality, learning 

outcomes, reason for leaving, whether achieved 

main goal 

• Employment outcomes: whether employed, 

whether employed full-time, wages, 

occupational status. Note that employment 

status before training needs to be taken into 

account here. 

Performance indicators need to have face validity, 

be robust, and be able to differentiate between 

institutions. By ‘face validity’ we mean that if 

institution A has a higher score than B then, 

everything else being equal, it will be generally 

accepted that institution A is performing better than 

B. By robustness we are referring to the amount of 

noise in the indicator. Thus performance indicators 

calculated on insufficient student numbers will be 

very noisy and not robust. Finally, indicators need to 

be able to differentiate between institutions. There 

is little point in having a performance indicator 

which takes more or less the same value for every 

institution. 

The indicators we suggested above can all be 

derived from large scale data collections – either 

the students and courses collection or the student 

outcome survey. More radical indicators are possible 

if we broaden the source data. In particular, some 

websites allow individuals to rate various aspects 

of an institution, in a similar way to Amazon 

asking readers to rate books. This approach is quite 

common in the United States but probably would 

not be appropriate for an ‘official’ site. 

There have also been suggestions within the 

Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) 

that indicators of employer satisfaction should be 

pursued. The difficulty here is that there is no way 

of collecting reliable data on individual providers. 

While the Survey of Employer Use and Views is 

conducted on a regular basis, it is designed to obtain 

use of, and views on, various aspect of the VET 

system and cannot be used to provider indicators of 

individual provider performance. 

The appropriate level of analysis 

TAFEs are rather large institutions and so the idea 

of overall performance is problematic. Some areas 

within a TAFE may be much stronger than others. 

This suggests that it might be better to calculate 

performance indicators for fields of study, or even 

a field of study by qualification level. The problem 

with this is that the number of students at a field of 

study level will be a lot smaller than at a whole of 

institution level. This means that the performance 

indicators will be more robust at a whole of 

institution level but potentially less informative. 

Common websites such as the ones in the United 

Kingdom typically allow the user to specify the field 

of study. Interestingly, these websites don’t seem to 

worry too much about the statistical properties of 

the indicators.

32 


Statistical approaches 

There are two basic approaches to adjust for the fact 

that providers have different student profiles, and 

these differences impact on performance indicators. 

First, multilevel regression can be used to separate 

the provider specific aspect of an indicator from 

the effect of the characteristics of students. An 

example is given in Curtis (forthcoming 2010) in 

which the module completion rate of individual 

TAFEs is modelled as a function of a range of student 

characteristics. The control variables comprise: 

gender, age, indigenous status, disability status, 

commencement status, location, employment 

status, school attainment, post-school qualifications, 

reasons for study, study load, whether at school, 

main field of education, Australian Qualifications 

Framework (AQF) level, main delivery mode and 

main funding source. Curtis finds that 95% of 

the variation in observed module pass rates can 

be explained by these characteristics of students, 

leaving 5% of the variation which is attributed 

to institutional factors. Putting it another way, 

the observed modules pass rates are a very poor 

indicator of institutional performance and it 

would be inappropriate to use the raw scores as 

an indicator of performance. When institutions are 

ranked by the modelled module pass-rate (that 

is, abstracting from student characteristics), we 

find that there are bands at the top and bottom 

in which the providers are statistically different, 

but the performance of many in the middle is not 

statistically different from each other. Figure 1 shows 

the results with the diamond representing the 

modelled performance relative to the overall average 

(the bars show statistical confidence intervals). 

Figure 1 Profile-adjusted competency 

completion rates for TAFE providers 

This graphical presentation shows why relative 

performance should not be converted into ranks, for 

the simple reason that the middle performers are 

very close to each other. For example, TAFEs ranked 

between 10 and 20 are not statistically different 

from each other. 

The second approach is to identify peers for each 

provider. 

There are various ways of doing this. The first is to 

take a naive approach and group them together on 

variables that have some face validity. For example, 

we could classify providers by size and whether they 

are city based or not. The obvious difficulty with this 

is that two providers may be similar in size but have 

very different orientations and student bases. 

The second way is to undertake a multivariate 

cluster analysis which groups providers together 

on the basis of certain characteristics. Essentially 

the technique works out the distance between 

providers on the basis of differences between 

the characteristics. The advantage of this method 

over the first method is that it is less arbitrary and 

can take into account a considerable number of


33 

variables that are relevant. However, there are two 

disadvantages. The first is that we need to specify 

the relative importance of variables; otherwise 

every variable is treated as important as every other 

variable. The second disadvantage is that inevitably 

the groupings produced by the cluster analysis will 

not accord with the ‘common sense’ priorities of 

some stakeholders, who will then attack the validity 

of the technique. 

The third possibility is to define peers on the basis 

of predicted values for a range of performance 

indicators, where the predictions take into account 

the student characteristics of each provider. 

The approach is to run regressions predicting 

the performance indicators in question. The 

peers of a provider are the half dozen providers 

whose predicted performance is close to that 

of the provider in question. The idea is that the 

characteristics of these providers are very similar in 

the way that matters for the performance indicators. 

The third possibility is attractive but again suffers 

from the difficulty that peers will not necessarily 

accord with ‘common sense’. 

Irrespective of which method is used, it is still 

important to take into account the statistical 

variation of the performance indicator. Once we 

have defined a set of peers we still need to make a 

judgment about whether, for example, a module 

completion rate of 87% is significantly different 

from one of 85%. This will depend on how many 

observations are used to generate the indicator for 

each provider. 

Final comments 

Indicators in the VET sector are inevitable. There 

is a demand for them by consumers and by 

regulators. Providers should also be seeking them 

for benchmarking purposes. The one thing that is 

certain is that they will be controversial – providers 

who rank highly will be happy to use them but 

those who rank more lowly will denigrate them. To 

ensure that indicators are defensible it is critical that 

the serious statistical issues that are associated with 

them are addressed. 

References 

Curtis, D (forthcoming 2010) Evaluating institutional performance indicators 

in VET, Technical Paper, NCVER, Adelaide.

34 

The Government’s Priority 

Drive 

KYM PEAKE 

Deputy Secretary, Skills Victoria, Department 

of Innovation, Industry and Regional 

Development (DIIRD) 

Before joining the Department in early 

2010, Kym worked in the Department of 

the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) as 

Executive Co-ordinator, Productivity and 

Inclusion, and Senior Adviser Policy Liaison. 

Kym has extensive experience working at 

State and Commonwealth levels, leading 

complex policy, legislation and service 

delivery reforms. In Victoria, Kym led 

reforms for ‘at risk’ children and families, 

ensuring services meet the needs of 

vulnerable groups and addressing barriers 

to social and economic participation. 

Prior to returning to PM&C, Kym was head 

of a public sector governance practice at 

KPMG, advising governments in Australia 

and Dubai on governance and strategy 

issues relating to urban development, 

affordable housing, emergency services, 

approaches to social regulation and the 

integration of health research, education 

and clinical service delivery. 

In 2008 the Government delivered Securing jobs 

for your future – Skills for Victoria, a $316 million 

major reform package directed at addressing 

skills shortages and building Victoria’s capacity for 

economic growth. The key features of the reforms 

were the introduction of a student entitlement to 

government subsidised training; demand-driven 

funding; a more contestable market for training; a 

revised fees and charges schedule; and introduction 

of VET-FEE HELP for Diploma and Advanced Diploma 

students. 

In the development and implementation of skills 

reform, the Government has a clear vision for the 

vocational education and training (VET) sector – 

one in which providers are dynamic, competitive, 

able to increase their market share through pursuing 

growing opportunities and attracting students from 

wider backgrounds and locations. The reforms are 

designed to increase the number of people training 

in areas of skills need; development of an effective 

and efficient training system; ensuring this skills 

system is responsive to industry needs; and the 

creation of a culture of lifelong skills development. 

Together with the recently introduced Education 

and Training Reform Amendment (Skills) Bill, 

the reforms will provide Victorians with a highly 

effective and progressive skills sector better able to 

support economic and social productivity objectives. 

In a demand-driven system, the role of government 

will change from that of a ‘purchaser’ of student 

places to that of a ‘market facilitator’, encouraging 

the delivery of courses to more students in areas 

of high demand. Equally, the role of our TAFEs, 

other VET providers and industry will change in 

a demand-driven system, to one of providing 

expanded opportunities that are responsive to 

industry and community needs.

35 

Importantly, the Victorian Government recognises 

the critical role our TAFE institutes play in the 

VET sector, and will continue to support Victoria’s 

high quality TAFE institutes to provide a full range 

of training services while seeking to capture the 

new opportunities presented by the reforms. For 

example, the Government is investing an additional 

$33 million in the TAFE and Adult, Community 

and Further Education (ACFE) sectors to ensure 

they have the capability to grow and expand in 

the new environment. The sector will also benefit 

from a significant information technology upgrade 

with $20 million committed to upgrading TAFE 

broadband. Additionally, Securing jobs for your future 

provides workforce development for teachers and a 

new program to attract industry experts as teachers 

to further support providers in the new system. 

In the implementation of the skills reform program 

there was extensive consultation with the sector. 

Skills Victoria held 108 information sessions and 

workshops for providers between November 2008 

and June 2010. The information sessions and 

workshops included the information sessions on 

the new business rules, round tables with TAFE 

Chief Executive Officers, information sessions on 

implementation guides; and one-on-one meetings 

with TAFEs who requested them. 

2010 Review 

In any reform of the size and scale of the skills reform 

program, it is important to monitor implementation. 

In 2010, the Victorian Government has reviewed 

Securing jobs for your future to examine the Victorian 

Government’s progress on the reforms, to provide 

information on how those initiatives contribute 

to the achievement of agreed State and national 

targets and objectives. The Review also sought to 

examine early impacts of the Victorian Training 

Guarantee on those cohorts for which it has now 

been implemented. 

To be successful in this new environment, VET 

providers must operate to the highest standards 

of efficiency, quality and transparency. This also 

presents the opportunity for providers to increase 

their capacity to compete and develop their business 

acumen. 

Education and Training Reform 

Amendment (Skills) Bill 

In this increasingly competitive demand driven 

environment it is imperative to ensure that, whilst 

maintaining operational independence, VET 

providers, both public and private, operate in an 

appropriate governance framework that provides 

accountability and transparency. 

Therefore, the Victorian Government recently 

introduced the Education and Training Reform 

Amendment (Skills) Bill which aims to improve 

Victoria’s training system in four ways. First, and 

most importantly, it aims to protect students’ rights 

and ensure their fair treatment. Secondly, it improves 

the regulatory system for vocational education and 

training. Thirdly, it reforms the governance of the 

state’s TAFE institutions and agencies. And fourthly, 

it enshrines in legislation the State’s guarantee of 

training places. 

In particular, the reforms to TAFE governance 

arrangements are designed to strengthen their 

managing boards and clarify lines of accountability 

between those boards and the minister. These 

reforms are consistent with other governance 

models for public entities engaging in commercial 

functions enabled through legislation. It is 

important that these institutions have the range 

of commercial, financial and management skills

36 

and experience that are needed for them to direct 

their institutes in the new, demand-driven and 

competitive training market. 

This Bill represents one of the most significant 

reforms to education and training in Victoria in 

recent years. It will better equip our institutions to 

meet the challenges of a competitive, demanddriven 

training market and will significantly 

improve governance, accountability and regulatory 

arrangements. 

Pathways to tertiary education 

An Expert Panel, chaired by Professor Kwong Lee 

Dow, was commissioned to advise the Victorian 

Government on the growth of Victorian tertiary 

education, found that by 2025 we will need 47 

per cent of Victorians in the age group 25 to 34 to 

hold a bachelor degree or above to meet industry 

needs. In analysing how many people Victoria’s 

knowledge economy will need with bachelor level 

qualifications, the Panel also recognised that there is 

also a need for a greater number of people with VET 

qualifications. 

To achieve this there will be two preconditions: 

• greater diversity of providers able to offer 

Commonwealth supported places, with TAFE 

institutes able to quickly grow degree level 

output in areas that are not necessarily covered 

by Table A providers 

• clearer pathways alternate to the traditional 

school to university model, as traditional 

pathways won’t be sufficient to achieve the 

structure and skills profile the Expert Panel 

identified as essential to maintain economic 

and social wellbeing. 

In this latter context, better structured pathways 

between vocational and higher education are seen 

as key strategies for maximising participation in 

and attainment of graduate qualifications. This 

further presents the opportunity for VET providers 

to compete for an expanding market. A range of 

Victorian VET and university partnerships currently 

exist which the Victorian Government is seeking to 

support and extend, in particular through credit/ 

articulation arrangements, franchised arrangements 

and joint VET/higher education delivery. Several 

Victorian TAFEs already offer bachelor degrees and 

are well positioned to drive up participation in 

higher level qualifications. TAFE NSW has recently 

been registered as a higher education provider in 

NSW and will begin to deliver higher education 

programs from February 2011. 

Victoria has the unique and enviable position 

of having four of the nation’s five dual sector 

institutions. With existing access to the 

Commonwealth Supported Places for their 

higher education programs, these institutes 

are well placed to provide integrated pathways 

from industry led delivery of national vocational 

qualifications, through to higher education. The 

Victorian Government supports the extension of 

Commonwealth Supported Places to any higher 

education provider, including VET providers, which 

meets quality standards. The commencement of 

new University Acts this year has recognised that a 

modern university may reach out of the traditional 

domains of higher education and deliver other forms 

of education and training.

THE HYBRID TIGER: ONE TERTIARY – A CONNECTED SECTOR 

37 

BRUCE MACKENZIE PSM 

Chief Executive, Holmesglen Institute and 

Chair, TAFE Directors Australia 

With over 25 years in the field of vocational 

education, Bruce Mackenzie PSM has 

played a leading role in the successful 

development and implementation of the 

TAFE system in Victoria. His contribution to 

the vocational education and training (VET) 

sector was formally recognised in his 

selection for the 1994 National AUSTAFE 

Award for Educational Leadership. In the 

2005 Australia Day Honours List, Bruce 

Mackenzie was awarded the Public Service 

Medal for outstanding services to 

vocational education. He was a founding 

member of TAFE Directors Australia and is 

currently its Chair. 

Holmesglen Institute enrols over 50,000 

students each year, trades locally, nationally 

and internationally with substantial 

international contracts in the Middle East. It 

offers courses over three educational 

sectors, upper secondary, vocational and 

higher education. 

PROFESSOR GREG CRAVEN 

Vice-Chancellor, Australian Catholic 

University 

Professor Greg Craven, lawyer and 

academic, commenced as Vice-Chancellor 

of the Australian Catholic University in 

February 2008. An expert in public law, he 

has published numerous journal articles 

and four books, including Conversations 

with the Constitution. A regular contributor 

to public debate, he is a columnist for the 

Australian Financial Review. 

Prior to his current appointment, Professor 

Craven served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor 

(Strategy & Planning) at Curtin University 

of Technology in Western Australia, where 

he also held the position of Professor of 

Government and Constitutional Law, having 

previously served as Executive Director of 

the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy. 

Professor Craven was Foundation Dean and 

Professor of Law at the University of Notre 

Dame Australia, and Reader in Law at the 

University of Melbourne. He also served as 

Crown Counsel to the Victorian Government 

from 1992 to 1995.

38 

THE HYBRID TIGER: ONE TERTIARY – A CONNECTED SECTOR 

• How would students benefit from a new, 

connected ‘tertiary education sector’ 

• How do universities and TAFE institutes best 

meet students’ needs 

• Would industry and the community be 

satisfied 

A conversation between Bruce Mackenzie, CEO, 

Holmesglen Institute and Professor Greg Craven, 

Vice-Chancellor, Australian Catholic University 

The following extract is from Andrew Trounson’s 

article in The Australian, 15 September 2010: 

UNIVERSITIES may complain that 

commonwealth funding doesn’t cover 

the cost of teaching, but the chairman 

of TAFE Directors Australia believes 

the funding rate is “pretty reasonable”. 

The comments at the TAFE Directors 

Australia conference in Melbourne 

this week highlight the lower cost 

structures of TAFEs that don’t offer 

higher degrees or research. 

“You can operate at the HECS level 

fairly easily,” said Bruce Mackenzie, 

who is also director of Victorian 

TAFE Holmesglen. 

His comments coincide with TDA 

lobbying the Gillard government to 

compete with universities for access 

to commonwealth funded places for 

degrees in areas of skills shortage. 

But Mr Mackenzie also said the 

faster-than-expected expansion 

of the university sector ahead 

of commonwealth places being 

uncapped in 2012 “suggests that 

maybe vice-chancellors think the 

money isn’t too bad” after all. 

The TAFE push for commonwealth 

places is raising questions about the 

importance of the research-teaching 

nexus in delivering degrees. 

Meanwhile, Australian Catholic 

University vice-chancellor Greg 

Craven said aggressive expansion at 

current funding rates during 2010, 

was for many universities a business 

decision aimed at capitalising on 

growth before the market moved to 

a student demand-driven system in 

2012, rather than an endorsement of 

funding levels. 

“The reality is if you are a relatively 

small university going into open 

competition with a two-year time 

lag, you would be crazy to wait for 

the bell to ring and all the sharks to 

jump in the water and then start to 

grow,” said Professor Craven, whose 

institution is 25 per cent overenrolled 

above the existing cap. 

On the question of degrees in 

TAFEs, Professor Craven said the 

appropriateness of it depended on 

the course and the capacity of the 

organisation. 

He noted that while much university 

teaching was vocational in nature, 

universities also have a wider role 

in delivering disciplines that aren’t 

specifically vocational, as well as 

pursuing research and participating 

in public debate. 

Professor Craven said some serious 

thinking was needed on how 

universities and TAFEs could cooperate 

in a blurred tertiary sector. 

. . .

Riding the tiger: 

The impact of changing 

migration scenarios on TAFE . . . 

39 

Professor Lesleyanne Hawthorne 

• How well is Australia performing in the global 

competition for skilled workers 

• How important are international students in 

this larger context 

• Can Australia remain competitive in the 

international student market 

• What are the implications for TAFE in this area 

PROFESSOR LESLEYANNE 

HAWTHORNE 

PhD, MA, BA Hons, Dip Ed, Grad Dip Mig 

Stud 

Lesleyanne is Associate Dean International 

and Chair of the Teaching & Learning 

Quality Assurance Committee at the 

University of Melbourne. She has 

researched skilled migration, foreign 

credential recognition and international 

student flows for the past 20 years – most 

recently for the Canadian, New Zealand and 

Australian governments, UNESCO, the US 

Migration Policy Institute and APEC. In 

2005, she was appointed to an Expert Panel 

of Three by federal cabinet to complete the 

most extensive evaluation of Australia’s 

skilled migration program since 1988. This 

was followed by federal government 

commissioned studies of international 

students in migration, studies of 

engineering, medical and nurse migration, 

and a comparison of Australia’s and New 

Zealand’s skilled migration programs. She 

has published extensively on these issues, 

assessing policy trends and outcomes 

across a wide range of countries. 

Abstract 

The past 10 years have coincided with extraordinary 

growth in international student mobility, with 

Asia confirmed as the major source of supply. 

This process is driven by demographic contraction 

across OECD countries, resulting in increased 

opportunity for students to convert to permanent 

resident status through ‘two-step migration’. The 

presentation examines this phenomenon in relation 

to international student flows to the European 

Union, Australia, the USA and Canada. Growth in 

export education demand is described by sector and 

discipline, with particular focus on the dominant 

student markets (China and India). Australia’s 

experience with international students as migrants 

is next defined, in particular the extent to which 

they gain employment (assessing the influence of 

English ability, discipline, and study sector). Within 

this context, the presentation describes the skilled 

migration paradigm shift now underway, and its 

likely impact on students. The implications for the 

TAFE sector are defined, as well as Australia’s in 

the global student market. The presentation argues 

that international students have become highly 

discerning education and migration consumers – 

researching global options in order to select the 

optimal study, migration and future employment 

outcomes.

40 RIDING THE TIGER: EDUCATION AND SKILLED MIGRATION

RIDING THE TIGER: EDUCATION AND SKILLED MIGRATION 

41



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47



49



51



53



55



57

58 

RIDING THE TIGER: EDUCATION AND SKILLED MIGRATION

59 RIDING THE TIGER: EDUCATION AND SKILLED MIGRATION 

59

60 

International students and 

skilled migration: 

re-appraising the relationship 

• How are we managing the relationship 

between migration and education 

• How are we managing the impact of recent 

changes to government policy on students/ 

providers 

• Decoupling education and migration: what are 

the right settings 

MARK CULLY 

Chief Economist, Department of Immigration 

and Citizenship 

After graduating with an Honours degree in 

Economics from Adelaide University, 

Mark was a public servant in Canberra, a 

Commonwealth Scholar at the University of 

Warwick and a civil servant in Whitehall. 

While head of research on industrial 

relations for the UK Government in the late 

1990s, he ran what was the world’s largest 

survey of working life, which was the basis 

for his second book, Britain at Work. 

In 1999, he joined the National Institute of 

Labour Studies at Flinders University, and 

was then General Manager at the National 

Centre for Vocational Education Research for 

six years, running its statistical and then 

research operations. Mark was a speaker at 

the inaugural Adelaide Festival of Ideas in 

1999 and chaired the advisory committee 

which prepared the Festival program from 

2003 to 2007. He joined the Department in 

January 2009 as its inaugural Chief 

Economist. 

Synopsis 

Australia has been a pioneer in the large-scale 

provision of international education. In absolute 

terms, Australia sits fourth in the world, while on 

a per capita basis it is (most likely) first. During 

2009, there were close to half a million international 

students in Australia, up more than three-fold from 

ten years earlier. There are distinctive features that 

underwrote this boom, notably allowing students to 

transition to permanent residence while onshore. 

Some accounts examine the international student as 

sovereign consumer, free to choose which country 

offers the best experience and cost package. The 

approach I take is from a different perspective, 

that of the sovereign state. It is the state which 

determines whether to allow international students 

passage to enter and live in its territory, and under 

what conditions. At heart, the state must consider 

how the national interest is served by international 

students. There are three different roles that 

international students play in the host country: 

consumers of education services; members of the 

resident population; and putative skilled migrants. 

Within this framework, the Australian experience 

between 1998 and 2008 can be characterised as a 

commercialisation phase, one where the national 

interest coalesced with the self-interest of education 

providers in favouring growing numbers of students.


61 

We are now moving into a sustainable phase, where 

the state is re-appraising the national interest 

against these dimensions, as the consequences of 

untrammelled growth have become apparent. 

A re-appraisal might also be warranted on the part 

of education providers. Two particular issues arise 

for TAFE institutes (as they do for universities). First, 

the primary role of public education providers is to 

educate and train Australians. Servicing international 

students, while valuable, is subsidiary to this role. 

Public education providers need to demonstrate 

that their primary role is not compromised by a 

rising share of international students in their overall 

student load. The onshore share of international 

students in TAFE is growing, but relatively modest 

at 6.5 per cent (in full-time equivalents). Second, 

students must be adequately equipped to transition 

to permanent residents as skilled migrants. TAFE 

has a good track record on improving employment 

outcomes for Australian students. The evidence is 

not so good for international VET students.

62 

Some quotes: 

...The range of speakers 

...The intensity of the Conference 

...The high level of uncertainty 

...How reliant we have become on 

the political system 

...The urgency to raise the profile 

of TAFE and the role we play across 

our communities

New Trends in VET reform and 

development in the People’s 

Republic of China 

63 

LIU JIANTONG 

Deputy Director General,Department of 

Vocational and Adult Education Ministry of 

Education People’s Republic of China 

From August 1984 to November 1987 Liu 

Jiantong held a post graduate position in 

the Department of History, Beijing 

University and then from November 1987 

to September 1998 was Program Official for 

the Department of vocational-technical 

education sector of China. From this time 

he became Division Chief for the 

Department of Vocational and Adult 

Education. Liu Jiantong became Deputy- 

Director for the Department of Vocational 

and Adult Education in December 2007. 

In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), vocational 

education and training (VET) has been identified 

as an important part of the whole education 

system. With the energetic support of the Chinese 

government, VET in China has been undergoing 

significant reform and development during the 

last 10 years and the resultant achievements have 

helped the rapid development of the Chinese 

economy and society. In China, developing VET 

has been driven by the need to change China’s 

huge population pressure into the advantage of a 

skilled human resource. Thus, we not only need a 

large number of scientists, engineers and economic 

managers but also millions of skilled people with 

high level technical and vocational abilities. 

To further speed up the development of the whole 

country’s education, and to meet the needs of 

social-economic development and people’s desire 

to learn, the central government held a National 

Education Conference and last July, published ‘The 

Outline of China’s National Plan for medium and 

long term education reform and development 

(2010-2020)’. In the Outline, which will be the 

guideline for education development for the next 

ten years, the country’s education ‘strategic goals 

to be attained by 2020 are to basically modernise 

education; shape a learning society; and turn China 

into a country rich in human resources’. To help 

achieve this goal, VET will play a very important role. 

The goals of VET, as put forward in the Outline, 

which comprises 22 chapters and 27,000 words, 

are that by 2020, the PRC will set up a modern 

VET system suited to the changes in economic 

development and the adjustment of industry 

construction, embodying the idea of lifelong 

education, and coordinating the development of 

secondary and higher VET to meet the vocational 

and education training needs of people and those of

64 

the economy and society for high quality labour and 

skilled talents. 

According to the Outline, China will focus on further 

strengthening VET development in the next ten 

years: 

First, by continuing to enlarge vocational education 

enrolment in schools/colleges in both 

secondary level education and higher 

education, especially to keep nearly the 

same enrolment scale between vocational 

schools and academic schools in the 

secondary education level. 

Second, by encouraging enterprises, industries and 

society to join more readily in the running 

of VET. 

Third, by more rapidly developing VET in rural areas. 

Fourth, by focusing on enhancing VET quality 

through developing employment 

orientated VET and combining 

more tightly schools with enterprises. 

Fifth, by making VET more involved in providing an 

attractive learning environment. 

Sixth, by increasing input of the government to VET. 

With a background of globalisation, the efforts to 

strengthen China’s VET cannot be undertaken in 

isolation. In fact, China has studied many countries’ 

experiences of developing VET including their 

frameworks, systems and management approaches. 

In particular, we have a long, constructive and 

close dialogue with Germany, Australia, the United 

Kingdom, Japan, and others. The Outline stresses 

that China must extend its cooperation with other 

countries to further develop VET. 

Cooperation between China and Australia in 

VET has a long history and occurs in many ways 

including the joint delivery of transnational VET 

programs by PRC and Australian VET institutions, 

the TAFE Directors Australia (TDA)/China Education 

Association for International Exchange (CEAIE) 

mentoring and leadership programs and the 

2002–2007 Australia China (Chongqing) Vocational 

Education and Training Project. The Australian 

Qualifications Framework, the Training Packages 

and Skills Australia Act 2008 (2005), all give us 

much inspiration. In the future, China looks forward 

to strengthening and broadening high quality VET 

linkages with Australia to the mutual benefit of both 

countries.

World café: success and quality 

for a 21st century TAFE 

65 

Facilitator 

IAN COLLEY 

Make Stuff Happen 

Ian Colley is Partner and Director with Make 

Stuff Happen, a consulting practice 

specialising in project leadership. Ian 

developed his facilitation skills through 

extensive experience with the design and 

facilitation of hundreds of events in 

business, government and community 

settings. 

He was a senior ministerial advisor in 

vocational education and then Project 

Director with the Dusseldorp Skills Forum. 

His work has garnered a high reputation, 

including a Global Best Practice Industry 

Education Partnership Award, and a NSW 

Premier’s Public Service Award. 

Ian currently teaches management and 

facilitation skills at the University of 

Technology, Sydney. 

World Café is a structured discussion session. 

Participants join a table group to discuss a specific 

(‘prompt’) question. After a set period, all participants 

are encouraged to move to another table – and 

another question. High energy and high interaction! 

After two or three rounds of discussion, the results are 

reported by table hosts. 

This interactive discussion was led by TAFE emerging 

leaders. The leaders were nominated by TAFE Directors 

for attendance at the Conference and TDA would like 

to acknowledge and thank them for their support to 

participants. The session was also supported by Robert 

Bluer from Innovation & Business Skills Australia 

(IBSA), Denise Janek, Managing Director, TAFE SA 

Regional, and a number of TDA Board members. 

The emerging leaders were: 

Nancy Allet, Holmesglen Institute of TAFE, VIC 

Carmen Broderick, Central Institute of Technology, WA 

Justin Busse, Charles Darwin University, NT 

Wayne Butson, Victoria University, VIC 

Kath Curry, Victoria University, VIC 

Gail Eaton-Briggs, Skills Institute, TAS 

Michelle Fernandez, Holmesglen Institute of TAFE, VIC 

Jill Jamieson, Challenger Institute of Technology, WA 

Lindy Kemp, North Coast Institute, TAFE NSW 

Madelyn Lettieri, Chisholm Institute, VIC 

Blair Marsh, Polytechnic West, WA 

Fiona Mitchell, Canberra Institute of TAFE, ACT 

Judy Parkinson, Charles Darwin University, NT 

Sean Parsonage, Adelaide South Institute, TAFE SA 

Mark Primmer, Hunter Institute, TAFE NSW 

Dr Ruth Schubert, TAFE SA Regional 

Leanne Sumpter, Victorian TAFE Association 

Sandra Stuckey, Southbank Institute of Technology, QLD 

Jai Waters, Illawarra Institute, TAFE NSW 

Alison Wood, Sydney Institute, TAFE NSW 

The summarised comments that follow are the key 

points made in the World Café discussions.

66 

Marketing the TAFE brand 

TAFE is the only brand that can be sold cohesively in 

an international market. 

The TAFE brand should be ‘transformational and 

inclusive’. 

• TAFE offers choice, and support for transition 

and pathways. 

• It is a community partner and capacity builder. 

• TAFE sees it as a social obligation for the 

‘whole person’, enabling success and career 

progression. 

To position itself for competitive advantage, and to 

have an aspirational and transformational impact, 

TAFE should use the stories of success and social 

media as the new ‘word of mouth’ advertising with 

young people. 

• TAFE has life changing ‘before and after’ 

outcomes. 

• TAFE impact can be ‘career defining’. 

The use of mandatory entry requirements for entry 

level training is a threat to the fulfilment of the 

TAFE brand’s potential – especially for youth and 

disadvantaged people. In a world of rebranding, 

public providers should maintain TAFE as a ‘sub 

brand’. A strong point of difference is in trust, 

pastoral care, and active teaching. 

We need to acknowledge that there are divided 

views on the merits of public providers positioning 

together. TAFE institutes will promote individuality 

in a contestable market, resulting in competition 

between TAFEs. 

Youth 

We should have both a funding model and an 

education planning model that provide for analysis 

of need and case management. These models need 

to be ‘co-constructed’ (not mutually exclusive). 

Good schools transition and pathway planning are 

essential. 

Our ‘emerging’ clients 

To address the needs of ‘emerging’ clients, TAFE 

needs to understand the market segments, and 

identify specific needs and demands. TAFE should 

use technology appropriately, and develop delivery 

materials that are tailored and customised to clients’ 

needs. TAFE should provide ‘whole of organisation’ 

solutions and develop innovative partnerships with 

industry. 

• We must ensure that pedagogies are relevant to 

each market segment and provide appropriate 

professional development for staff. 

• TAFE should ‘value add’ to industry, for 

example, with ‘job ready’ clients through work 

placements. 

Competencies – key messages 

Are training packages relevant in a 21st century 

knowledge-based economy 

There is a need for a ‘looser’ system of competencybased 

training (CBT) and moderation of assessment 

across all VET providers. 

Most people acknowledge the notion of training 

packages as a very sound platform. Industries have 

diversified, technological environments can be too 

specific for training package competencies and do 

not generally meet the broader needs of industry. 

However, elements within competencies can be 

too prescriptive which can be a barrier to meeting 

specific industry/enterprise needs. 

Young people prefer to build their own learning/ 

training programs, so customisation needs to be 

engaging. The language in training packages is 

complex.

67 

An understanding of mathematics is required across 

the majority of industries, and there is minimum 

integration into competencies. 

• We need better communication between 

Higher Education (HE) and VET as HE does not 

understand competency. 

• For the competencies to be delivered 

effectively, providers need to be funded 

appropriately. 

Make sure policy makers do not ‘throw the baby out 

with the bath water’. 

Innovation and entrepreneurship 

What does it take to build an institution 

that achieves a high level of innovation and 

entrepreneurship in its educational provision 

It is not just about bright ideas but about building 

relationships. We need to break down the ‘silos’ and 

get greater collaboration between institutes. 

There is sometimes a tension between innovation 

and quality where there is ‘misdirected’ compliance 

rather than too much compliance. 

A cultural change is needed from teaching with 

chalk to entrepreneurial customer service. It 

was considered that executive management 

has responsibility for driving the shift to a more 

entrepreneurial culture, one of creativity even within 

existing budgets and structures, as long as we plan 

for innovation and prioritise, proceed in ‘bite size’ 

chunks, use ‘story-telling’ to change culture and 

create incentives. 

We can use incentives that are non-financial: 

• Skill-up staff to be risk takers. 

• Emphasise client review processes. 

• Empower staff to be innovators and 

entrepreneurs and ‘support them when they 

fail’. 

Let the teacher work on the business not just in the 

business. Take risks! 

International students 

Why do we want international students Four 

important reasons are: 

• income 

• cultural enrichment 

• support for tourism 

• internationalisation of the learning 

environment. 

One important strategy is to make sure that the 

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the 

Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC), 

and the Department of Education, Employment 

and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) work together 

in an integrated approach to international students. 

For example, the visa application system needs to 

be streamlined and take into account that different 

sectors need to have differing risk assessments 

applied to them for those visa applications. 

A second important strategy is rebuilding/ 

rejuvenating Australia’s reputation as a quality 

education destination. The brand can be rebuilt 

through positive case studies and examples. 

We should, for example, promote a whole 

student experience (accommodation, part time 

employment, etc.), including articulated pathways 

that will need to be in place. 

Internationalisation of learning environments leads 

to cultural enrichment. Commercialisation also 

enhances independence and financial strength 

for our institutions. The carrot for students – 

migration – needs careful management, and should 

be confined to areas of skill shortage. As well, 

international student numbers should be capped 

based on facilities.

68 

There are too many ‘amateurs’ in the field. Agents 

and students are confused and government 

mishandling of a small problem can threaten the 

entire industry. Australian qualifications are held 

in high regard and it is critical to maintain their 

credibility. 

• Education excellence must be the cornerstone. 

• School participation in the area of international 

students is likely to be left behind. 

• Infrastructure has not kept up with population 

growth. 

• There has been strong growth in private 

Registered Training Organisations’ (RTO) 

enrolments. 

• Note that the European model of international 

education is not linked to Permanent 

Residence. 

We need to acknowledge students’ contribution 

to the economy, and make Australia a ‘welcoming’ 

destination. We should value-add services to these 

students (for example, through placements and 

language development). 

We should look more at niche markets, providing 

offshore partnerships to provide increased student 

support/exchange of staff. 

We need to attract students through a quality 

organisation and ‘forget PR!’. 

Quality assurance 

The core focus should be on the needs of students 

and continuous improvement. 

We get mixed messages from auditors. There is too 

much focus on compliance rather than on actual 

quality of training delivery. Consistency of auditing 

activity is lacking and may lead to more ‘paper work’. 

We need consistency. Staff qualifications need to 

link to Professional Development and there should 

be a whole workforce development strategy. We 

need to establish benchmarks. 

Systems should be better integrated to access 

quality data. 

Apprenticeships 

There is a lack of data on why apprentices are 

dropping out and in which areas. Is it a TAFE issue or 

an employer issue For example, wages are a huge 

disincentive; increase flexibility; don’t base it on time 

served. However, some TAFEs report increases in 1st 

year apprenticeship retention, and argue the main 

reason is ‘they’ve got jobs’ (generally for 3rd year 

apprentices). 

Employers don’t want apprentices off the job, so 

wrap qualifications in work tasks. Learn on-the-job 

(with support) and therefore reduce hours. 

We need highly skilled teachers working with 

predominately young people. We also need more 

support for Language, Literacy and Numeracy (LLN). 

We also need more flexibility and additional support 

(for example, pastoral care, and workplace support 

from the RTO, mentoring). 

We need ‘world class’ equipment and facilities 

to better meet student expectation. We also 

need higher level qualifications, focusing on 

advanced teaching and assessment and improved 

opportunities in tracking for LLN. We need to ensure 

there are appropriate education pathways. 

• Generally, the programs are more effective 

when shortened. 

• Let’s have ‘Retention officers’ dedicated to the 

youth cohort. Make pre-apps a pre-requisite. 

Have more recognition up front. 

• We need a more diverse demographic in the 

teaching staff. 

• We should put more training into employers.

69 

Quality teaching 

The Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (TAA) 

is all right for entry level in some industries but we 

need higher qualifications, focused on advanced 

training and assessment. However, there are Literacy 

and Numeracy problems – and these need to be 

addressed through entry level qualification. In the 

main, the Certificate IV is not enough. We also need 

induction, and teaching practice. 

It should be noted that the TAA course has been very 

successful in other countries. 

Teacher quality 

The core issue is the professionalisation of the TAFE 

workforce. We should lift the status of teachers and 

encourage self-regulation. 

New South Wales school teachers, for example, 

register and take responsibility for their own 

professional development. 

One model outlined the framework for a diploma 

to be developed with a university, providing for 

different levels of performance, for example, 

proficient and exceptional. The Certificate IV would 

be embedded in the diploma. 

Some saw professionalisation of ‘public’ providers as 

a point of differentiation. 

Young people 

Our approach is wrong. We need to engage and 

inspire enthusiasm for learning and broaden the 

programs to include personal development. This will 

require a massive rethink about how we work with 

young people. Maths and numeracy problems mean 

many trade students are struggling. 

We need to: 

• increase literacy and numeracy support, use 

project-based learning, and provide much more 

support. Students don’t complete because they 

lack basic literacy/numeracy skills. 

• Integrate tutor support. 

Scandinavia has increased retention rates. Skills are 

integrated, and project-based work and self-esteem 

building are central to each program. Also, there is 

a lot of literacy/numeracy support, and follow-up 

on absenteeism. There are no dead ends – students 

are streamed early but can easily bridge across to 

other streams. There are strong links with industry. 

In Finland, students are fully ‘tracked’ and there is no 

stigmatisation of the VET option compared to Higher 

Education. 

In some models, students and teachers were 

working together as equals. Respect is high, work is 

enjoyable and learning is ‘project-based’. 

We need to: 

• get young people involved in ‘outward bound’ 

type activities 

• grasp ‘social media’ in order to market to young 

people. 

It is important to note that we are not failing 

all. There are some who are disengaged/ 

disenfranchised. Teaching has not kept pace with 

21st century expectations. And the failings are not 

all due to TAFE – it is more about prior educational 

experiences. 

Industry specialists and youth workers working with 

teachers could make a difference. There are good 

outcomes when teachers are technology specialists 

and are young themselves. 

We need a two-day conference on Youth. There are 

many initiatives and programs in place which need

70 

to be shared, measured and learned from. We need 

to collaborate with other educational providers to 

address the literacy and numeracy and learning 

issues that prevail and address them before they 

come to TAFE. 

Success measures 

Measures are really important to drive the 

right behaviours. These measures should cover 

completions and qualification levels attained, 

community and social responsibilities, further 

training into employment, social inclusion, regional 

impact, customer satisfaction and referrals. 

Measures should acknowledge complexity. Perhaps 

the most important measure is ‘are you satisfied’ 

How do we measure ‘relationships’ – partnerships, 

linkages with community and schools Do we need 

to put a dollar value on these contributions . 

We need to stratify clients and align success 

measures to their individual requirements. We also 

need to take a longer term perspective and do 

longitudinal outcome studies of VET students. We 

need a set of measures that make sense over the 

course of an individual’s five career changes. Jobs 

may not be the best or only measure, for example, 

if the system is demand driven, then the job/study 

nexus may be weakened compared to industry 

driven places. 

• Effective teaching should be measured. 

• High performing TAFEs should contribute to the 

economy. 

Rural and regional 

The vital messages should be that TAFE makes a 

major contribution to regional communities, and 

TAFE is necessary in order to achieve the Bradley 

Access targets. 

Regions are not all the same, each is unique. Regions 

have different ‘aspirational levels’ to metropolitan 

areas. There are lower levels of qualification and 

participation. Training is seen as a ‘luxury item’ in 

the context of such issues as drought, and generally 

lower socioeconomic demographic. It should be 

acknowledged that some ‘inner country’ regions can 

be attractive, compared to more remote and border 

areas. 

The policy of how training is purchased does not 

recognise its true cost. Policy should be customised 

to create a ‘regional’ loading. The Community Service 

Obligation that TAFE, in effect, provides is not 

recognised. 

Attraction and retention of staff is challenge, for 

example, in Resources and Engineering. 

Large regional employers have a leadership 

function as well as an economic function. Very few 

organisations cover the space in ways that local 

government and TAFE institutes cover it. 

There are already regional university campuses 

working with TAFE to deliver courses, awarding TAFE 

Diplomas and leading to Degrees. Some universities 

are not viable. In terms of capital investment, it is 

wasteful to double up on facilities (for example, in 

schools and universities) that are already available 

in TAFE. People are concerned about status. So for 

Diplomas and Advanced Diplomas, it is valuable to 

‘sell’ the upfront pathway and guaranteed entry to 

university. 

TAFE fulfils social responsibilities, access and equity, 

for example, to Aboriginal students. Local services 

must be maintained, there would be serious flowon 

effects from removing services. Accommodation 

is a key attraction. 

It is ‘Our TAFE’.

The Tertiary Sector 71 

statements, and the Office of Evaluation 

and Audit (Indigenous Programs). She was 

also a member of the Financial Reporting 

Council from 2005 to 2010. 

Ms Campbell holds an MBA, an MInfSc, and 

a BAppSc (AppMaths). She undertook the 

Advanced Management Program at 

Harvard Business School in 2008. 

KATHRYN CAMPBELL 

Deputy Secretary Tertiary, Youth and 

International Department of Education, 

Employment and Workplace Relations 

Kathryn Campbell commenced as the 

Deputy Secretary, Tertiary, Youth and 

International in the Department of 

Education, Employment and Workplace 

Relations on 24 May 2010. Prior to this 

appointment, she was Deputy Secretary, 

Budget within the Department of Finance 

and Deregulation (Finance), and provided 

advice to the Minister, senior ministers and 

Cabinet’s Expenditure Review Committee 

on expenditure priorities, and supported 

the Government in preparing and delivering 

the Budget. 

From 2005 to 2009 Kathryn was Deputy 

Secretary, Financial Management in 

Finance, responsible for the financial 

framework of the Australian Government, 

the Future Fund and Nation-building Funds, 

Australian Government civilian 

superannuation schemes, the production of 

Australian Government financial

72 

72 

The Ter&ary Sector 

TAFE DIRECTORS AUSTRALIA 

Na&onal Conference 2010 

Kathryn Campbell 

Deputy Secretary 

So what is Ter-ary

73 

A UNESCO Defini-on 

“Any educa+on entered a/er successful comple+on of 

secondary educa+on, which may include voca+onal post-secondary 

educa+on (leading to a cer+ficate) and higher 

educa+on (leading to a degree), even though the designa+on is 

o/en used synonymously with higher educa+on”. 

Source-‐ Campbell, C and Rozsnyai, C, 2002 ,Quality Assurance and Development of Course Programmes, 

UNESCO 

Towards an Australian Defini-on 

•“all Victorian universi+es, the 1,300 providers registered to deliver VET, 

and the 350 publicly-‐owned adult and community educa+on providers.” 

Source: Report Advising on the development of the Victorian Ter+ary 

Educa+on Plan (the Kwong Lee Dow Report) 

• TDA and UA propose that ter-ary is only diploma and above.

74 

The Australian Government 

Australian Government working view: 

• The VET and Higher Educa-on sectors together form a 

“ter-ary sector”; and 

• Diversity is encouraged within each sector and across 

both public and private providers. 

Why is it important to the Australian 

Government

75 

Educa-on Pathways aren’t StraighNorward! 

The par&cipants in an NCVER study: 

• 75 percent of par-cipants recorded three or more moves 

• The highest number of an individual’s moves was seven 

• 60 per cent of learning moves involved moves to different 

educa-on fields 

• 64 per cent of inter-‐sectoral moves were from VET to higher 

educa-on 

• Intra-‐sectoral moves were highest within VET 

A Post-‐Bradley Landscape 

“the move to a mass higher educa+on system together 

with the growth of a creden+als-‐driven employment 

environment has seen a blurring of the boundaries 

between the two sectors.” 

Source: Professor Denise Bradley, AC, Review of Australian Higher Educa+on

76 

The Australian Government 

“…we need the two systems to work together to produce 

integrated responses to na+onal needs in knowledge, skill 

development and social inclusion … two systems, one shared 

vision…” 

Source: Julia Gillard, the then Minister for Educa+on, Employment and Workplace Rela+ons, 

Media Interview, March 2009 

Australian Government and COAG 

Targets 

• By 2025, 40% of all 25 to 34 year olds will hold a bachelor degree level 

qualifica-on or above 

• By 2020, 20% of HE enrolments at the undergraduate level will be of people 

from a low socio-‐economic background (low SES) 

• By 2020, halve the propor-on of Australians aged 20 to 64 years without a 

Cer-ficate III qualifica-on 

• By 2020, double the number of higher qualifica-ons comple-ons (Diplomas 

and Advanced Diplomas)

77 

Australian Government Skills 

Objec-ves – Budget 2010 

• Address immediate skills needs and help tackle emerging skills 

shortages 

• Provide enhanced resourcing to improve the literacy and numeracy 

levels of Australians with poor levels of literacy and numeracy; and 

• Lie the capacity, quality and transparency of the VET system to 

befer service the needs of the Australian popula-on. 

Regional Delivery 

• Government commifed to delivering for Regional Australia 

• Funding from the Educa-on Investment Fund 

• TAFE footprint in Regional Australia. 

• VET Par-cipa-on in major ci-es 4.5%, Outer Regional 9% 

and Remote and Very Remote 11.3%.

78 

So where are we 

Challenges 

• Different regulatory environments 

• Quality Assurance and Accredita-on 

• Data Collec-on and Repor-ng 

• Percep-ons

79 

MCTEE 

A “joined up” Ministerial Council: the Ministerial Council 

for Ter-ary Educa-on and Employment (MCTEE) to ensure 

that future planning and decision-‐making takes into 

considera-on the issues that span the two sectors. 

Australian Qualifica-ons Framework 

• Review of the AQF to improve flexibility and movements 

between VET and higher educa-on. 

• The AQF Council “Pathways Project” to improve the 

ar-cula-on and connec-vity between the sectors.

80 

Quality Assurance 

Strengthening the Australian Quality Training Framework 

• Strengthened condi-ons and standards for registra-on of new 

providers entering the market and con-nuing registra-on of 

ongoing providers have been introduced. 

• Only training providers likely to deliver quality outcomes will be 

admifed to the VET market; and only training providers that 

deliver to required standards are permifed to con-nue in 

opera-on. 

Na-onal VET Regulator and TEQSA 

• Interim Na-onal VET Regulator Chair and CEO and Interim 

TEQSA Chair and CEO appointed 

• Working together and with DEEWR on implementa-on 

• Shared approaches to facilitate eventual bringing together of 

the two en--es. 

• Focus on minimising the regulatory burden on ins-tu-ons 

whilst ensuring quality.

81 

Skills Australia 

Expanded role of Skills Australia -‐ skills forecas-ng ac-vi-es 

not constrained by ar-ficial boundaries rela-ng to whether a 

worker was educated and trained by voca-onal or higher 

educa-on providers. 

So what next

82 

Minister Evans – Minister for Jobs, 

Skills and Workplace Rela-ons 

TAFE Directors Australia Posi-ons 

• TDA Posi-on 5 – The dominant considera-on in moving towards a single 

ter-ary regulator should be to improve the opportunity for students to 

move in both direc-ons between VET and HE study according to their 

capabili-es and aspira-ons at different stages of life. 

• TDA Posi-on 7 – Ensure funding supports students to choose the best 

course of study for their par-cular circumstances and aspira-ons, including 

more equitable access for VET students. 

• TDA Posi-on 8 – In the first instance, TAFE ins-tutes to receive funding for 

Commonwealth Supported Places in priority areas of na-onal skills shortage 

and TAFE ins-tutes offering degrees to have access to funding for 

Commonwealth Supported Places.

83 

Pathways 

• AQF Council “Pathways Project” 

• Government Commitment to Ter-ary 

2010-‐11 Budget Skills Package 

• Na-onal VET Regulator and Standards Council ($55m) 

• Quality Skills Incen-ve ($129.8m) 

• Na-onal En-tlement to a Quality Training Place ($53.6m) – income con-ngent loans for VET 

qualifica-ons in return for commitments to improve VET training system including the 

guarantee of training place to all 15-‐24 year olds. 

• Cri-cal Skills Investment Fund ($200.2m) 

• Appren-ce Kickstart extension ($79.4m) 

• Smarter Appren-ceships ($19.9m) 

• Founda-on skills package ($119.2m)

84 

Commonwealth Supported Places 

• The call for TAFE ins-tutes to receive funding for Commonwealth 

Supported Places will need to be considered by the incoming Minister. 

• Na-onal Agreements between the Commonwealth and States and 

Territories. 

• Australian Government Fiscal Commitment – all new spending offset. 

Ques-ons

Conference gala dinner 

speaker 

85 

recent publication is Bendable learnings, an 

assortment of noxious management drive 

and financial market blather. Don is also a 

screen writer of several feature films, 

including ‘The Man who Sued God’, starring 

Billy Connolly and Judy Davis. 

DON WATSON 

Author of Weasel Words 

After completing a PhD at Monash 

University Don Watson was an academic 

historian for ten years. He wrote three books 

on Australian history and then spent several 

years writing political satire for the actor 

Max Gillies and political speeches for the 

then Victorian Premier John Cain. 

In 1992 he became Prime Minister Paul 

Keating’s speech-writer and adviser and his 

book, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: Paul 

Keating Prime Minister, won several awards 

including the Age Book of the Year, Brisbane 

Courier Mail Book of the Year and the 

National Biography Award. 

Death sentence, his best-selling book about 

the decay of public language won the 

Australian Booksellers Association Book of 

the Year 2003. Watson’s dictionary of Weasel 

Words was published in 2004. In 2008, 

American journeys won the Age Non- 

Fiction and Book of the Year Awards, the 

Indie Award for Non-Fiction and the 

Walkley Award for Non-Fiction. Don’s most

The Melbourne Aquarium – venue for the 2010 Conference 

Gala Dinner. 

Jeanette Allen, CEO, Service Skills Australia and 

Coralie Morrissey, Victoria University. 

Blair Marsh, Director, Commerce and Social Services, 

Polytechnic West; Phil de Garis, Managing Director, Education 

& Training International; Carmen Broderick, Director, 

Teaching & Learning, Central Institute of Technology; 

Paul Houghton, Director, KT Studio, Polytechnic West. 

Patrick Coleman, Director Policy, Business Council of Australia 

and Martin Riordan, CEO, TAFE Directors Australia. 

Liu Jiantong, Deputy-Director, Department of Vocational 

and Adult Education Ministry of Education People’s 

Republic of China and Brenda Cleaver, A/Associate Director, 

Organisational Capability, TAFE NSW Sydney Institute. 

Neil Fernandes, Managing Director, Central Institute of 

Technology; Wendy Burns, Managing Director, TAFE NSW 

South Western Sydney Institute; Lyn Farrell, Managing 

Director, Pilbara TAFE.

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