Get with the times, VET – comment by CEO Craig Robertson

This week I return to the topic of VET qualifications following a hiatus due to the election and reporting back on our study tour to Canada and the US supported by two of our industry partners, CISCO and Optus.

Last time I wrote of my alarm on the prospect of competency-based education as the new black in the US tertiary education system, although I calmed down once it was clear US competencies are to be a different take on learning outcomes.

We differ in our concept of competency. Substantially so compared to the aspiration in the US, much narrower than the Germans conceive competency but possibly like the English version. In Australia, our learning outcomes (to the extent there are any in an education sense) are the tasks involved in an occupation – the competencies. Each VET qualification, complete with task definitions, oops, units of competency, seeks to prescribe the skills of an occupation. The learning program (if there is one) is built from that. For a person to move on in their career, or change job, more formal training is required, thanks to the Carmichael model.

In Australia we celebrate the efficiency of this model. Someone acquires a qualification for a job. She or he gets the job. Simple!  But let’s see how efficient that looks from a broader view.

I make my point courtesy of Australian Rules Football, that great home-grown game. Australia can only blame itself when there are faults in the game.

Let’s imagine what would happen if we applied the current logic of qualifications to Aussie rules.

Firstly, people would need to train for a specific position – as a forward flank, or back pocket, possibly even a left forward flank or right back pocket.

Secondly, players would be limited to play the position for which they had trained. Clearly, if the pathway into the game was prescribed in this way then it must flow through to the game itself.

Thirdly, if a player wanted to play another position, they’d need to go back to training to qualify for that position.

Fourthly, when it comes to the game, a player could only play their position and the skills prescribed to it. That’s the only logical conclusion from the rules.

Fifthly, this would also have to be policed. More umpires to ensure each player did not venture beyond the position they were trained for.

Sixthly, a player exercising skills beyond those prescribed would be in breach. It’s not too hard to imagine that special committee structures would be required to approve any skills outside the norm.

Would you watch? Would you recommend your children play the game? Fifteen little zones of play. The action in one zone at a time. Little motion and no movement of players. Rules bound and heavy policing. No thrill of a Buddy Franklin sweeping down the wing with a great arching kick to goal. No desperate defensive retreat from a forward trying to defend the goal.

Lastly, to make things worse, a player with aspirations for other football positions after retirement wouldn’t be allowed as the Australian Football Positions Framework doesn’t recognise some positions![1]

Some will say that I’m exaggerating. But am I? In the Australian economy there are 1,325 occupations, yet at last count there were 1,527 qualifications in training packages and 887 as accredited courses!

Some may say this is ridiculous and doesn’t match the real world. Amen! Then why do VET qualification structures continue with this kind of logic? Some positions need specialist skills, but those don’t dictate how the rest of the positions are structured and how the game is played.

I’m pretty sure that the success of the AFL Women’s league has many a girl aspiring to be an AFLW player and developing the skills that will get them there. Honing ball skills, on both sides of the body, acquiring knowledge of the game and learning how to read the play and the opposition – not the rules of each position. They can learn that when they get there and if they need to.

How efficient is a system if it doesn’t work as a whole? Only 32 per cent of graduates end up in jobs aligned to their training and we know most workplaces are far more dynamic than what VET qualifications structures assume.

A sport survives and thrives on participants aspiring higher and achieving more. Australian VET needs to offer the same for students, but the rules count against it. We made the rules, so we have the capacity to change them. It’s a question whether there’s the will.