Keeping it real - the Queensland VET Development Centre

Interviews were conducted at five Queensland TAFE institutes using a ‘vertical slice’ approach tosample staff at different levels within the institute hierarchy. The sample included a workplacetrainer, teacher, lead vocational teacher, educational manager/director and an administrativestaff member from the business improvement area. A different vocational training area wassampled at each institute. The institute sample included a metropolitan institute, a specialistinstitute, a near metropolitan institute and two regional institutes.Five Queensland registered private RTOs were consulted and a similar ‘vertical slice’ approachwas used where possible in selecting the sample staff for interview. The sample of private RTOsincluded two large providers and three small providers. 3 Interviews were also conducted with arange of other VET stakeholders including industry skills alliances, industry clients of RTOs, andunion delegates.The research team received surveys from 123 people, of whom 18 were RTO managers, 98 weretrainers in RTOs and the remainder were from other VET stakeholder groups. The RTO staff work ina variety of vocational training areas. A breakdown of trainer respondents by vocational trainingareas is included in Table 1 (at Appendix 3). The research team interviewed 57 people, of whom15 were RTO managers and 23 were trainers.More detail about the interview respondents is provided in Table 2 (Appendix 3). There was a totalof 180 responses received through interviews and questionnaires; 25 from private RTOs, 119from public RTOs, 10 involved in schools and other VET stakeholders.The range of issues and concerns identified during both the interviews and the survey wasbroadly consistent. Therefore this paper makes no differentiation between survey and interviewrespondents.3 For the purposes of this research RTO size was defined as follows: small RTO (1-5 trainers), medium RTO (6-20 trainers) and large RTO (21 +trainers).Industry Currency of Trainers in Queensland5