Occasional Paper - TAFE Directors Australia

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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
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