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SPECIAL BULLETIN - 2020 SUMMIT
A Report from the Chair, Deb Daly - TAFE Directors Australia
As a delegate to the 2020 Summit, I participated in the Productivity stream - focusing on education, skills, training, science and innovation. Despite some rigorous debate and significant time pressures over the two days of the summit, I was very pleased with the outcomes of the productivity stream, and judging by the response from the 1000 delegates during the final presentation of ideas on Sunday afternoon, it appears that many of those ideas have broader support. You can view the full report from the Summit online at
www.australia2020.gov.au
or download the PDF Initial 2020 Summit Report.
Following is a brief summary of the key points out of the productivity stream:
Ambition/Aspiration:
BY 2020:
Australia will maximise its wealth, excellence and equity by driving up productivity growth to the leading edge of developed countries, by:
Equipping all Australians through an education and training system that leads the world in excellence and inclusion
Deploying Australia's human capital efficiently and fairly including by overcoming the barriers that lock individuals and communities out of real opportunities
Connecting through new collaborations across our education, business and innovation systems
TOP IDEAS
Equip
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Supporting kids: Overcome the public private divide in education by, for example, funding students according to need and encouraging more private investment.
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Extending HELP: Extend Higher Education Loan Programs (HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP) to all students in post-secondary education.
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2020 Scholarships: merit based scholarships to vocational education and training and higher education institutions in skills shortage areas.
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Community Corps: allow community service to reduce a person's HECS-HELP debt.
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Science and Maths Connections: Improve science and maths education by connecting scientists and others with teachers, especially in our primary schools.
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Rewarding excellence in teaching: Focus on the connections between quality teaching and productivity.
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Celebrating teaching: Celebrating the vocation and contribution of teaching.
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Teaching first: Establish a national program to attract talented graduates and career-switchers into teaching, and reward teachers for working in national priority areas, including disadvantaged communities, remote areas and in shortage subjects.
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Innovation Australia: Establish a national institute for innovation and creativity.
Deploy
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Windows on workplaces: Empower employees to choose their preferred workplaces by facilitating the dissemination of information about employment experience, for example work-life-balance and family friendliness.
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Skills development: Employers take responsibility for developing the skills of their workforce and in return are able to access a flexible, demand driven training system.
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Work in the bush: Provide incentives for people to work in rural and regional Australia by supporting people to re-locate from areas of few jobs to areas where there are labour shortages.
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Mobile labour market: Enabling the free movement of labour from the Asia-Pacific region into Australia, underpinned by Australian workplace standards.
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Learning for life account: Develop lifetime participation accounts for every Australian from birth - into which the government and others can make payments for education, training, parental leave, and superannuation contributions, with capacity to go into deficit and income-contingent repayments which maximise the choices available to individuals and link flexible personal choices to a new range of early childhood and learning services.
Connect
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Parent and children centres: Communities have access to integrated services to support children's health, development, learning and care. Childhood development should be supported through a place-based culture that offers integrated services and community support
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Life Learning centres: service centres supporting working age Australians with their family and career needs
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Release latent value in our human capital by:
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One curriculum - more money for schools: Creating a national curriculum and rationalizing curriculum and assessment institutions, with freed up funds going to children in schools
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Business - school connections: Creating a coordinated partnership program between Australia's top 100 companies and schools. This program could also include universities and vocational education and training institutions
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Golden Guru: retired people acting as mentors in the workplace
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Science, business and arts into schools: Connect scientists, business and the arts with the education system
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Australia Unlimited: Create and organise alumni network of both Australians living overseas and former foreign students
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Connecting Australia: Building and enabling the use by all Australians of a world class broadband system to foster full participation in the digital economy
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Business - research connect: improving collaboration between public and private business, industry and research to foster innovation to OECD levels.
I would commend the entire report to members, and in doing so remind you of assurances that the Summit was just the start of the conversation, and that the Prime Minister's own assurance that the dialogue remains open until the end of the year when the Government is expected to respond to the ideas put forward.
Can I also remind you that at this point, the aspirations are very broad and that we need to seize the opportunity over the next few months to provide some of the detail that can guide the government's deliberations of the "how to". The invitation has been extended and we must capitalise on it.
While I was selected as an individual for Summit participation, my attendance was supported by TDA and it was an honour to represent our Association. It would have been easy to descend into the detail of the issues that concern VET and the public provider more broadly, but instead I saw this as an opportunity to raise our sights to higher order aspirations about an excellent education and training system underpinned by excellent teaching practitioners. I believe there is a blank page available for us now to fill in the detail of how the public VET provider can contribute to those aspirations - that will be
our opportunity to "beat the drum".
I would welcome feedback from members, and assure you that your Association will be taking every opportunity to influence the debate over the coming months.
Deb Daly
Chair
TAFE Directors Australia
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