Is apprenticeship the canary in the VET cave? – comment by CEO Craig Robertson

This past week saw further news about the continuing slide in apprenticeship and traineeship numbers. It was accompanied by the obligatory wringing of hands followed by the predictable call for governments to do something about it.

True, governments set the rules of the game. In this case, conducive wages, funding for training, quality assurance over the training and the training organisations, and financial inducements even. And, as the theory goes, the training is specified by industry for industry, but are they buying it?

A quick look at Commencement figures show declines in key areas over the period 2014 to 2018. Trades are not as dramatic, although the halving of Engineering, ICT and science technicians just intuitively is a concern in the face of technology growth. The dramatic drop in food trade workers could indicate the industry is walking away from its own formal training pathways to fill these jobs, because there hasn’t been that dramatic a reduction in Australian’s eating out!

But let’s look at their rate of change compared to these jobs in the economy. A quick glance at the Australian Jobs[1] publication released two weeks ago by the Department that now takes on apprenticeship policy tells a different story.

About the only thing we can conclude is that employers are choosing different options. The Government has been keen to tell us of buoyant employment over the period in question. Traineeships for Community and personal service workers is just one alarming example of take-up even when the community understands these jobs are in demand. In this best of times, and with employers not using apprenticeship, even to replenish their skills stock, it’s strange that the Joyce Report is proposing to rely even more on industry. (When I use the term apprenticeship I also mean traineeship, apprenticeship’s cousin from the wrong side of the tracks.)

Shane Wright said in The Age on Saturday: “Household consumption is growing at a level normally associated with a major downturn. Wages are barely moving while retailers cannot entice spending out of heavily indebted consumers who are finding the value of their homes falling.”

In the face of economic headwinds, employers shouldn’t be expected to engage in apprenticeship, but no doubt the Morrison Government will come under pressure to implement counter-cyclical measures to put people into training. That’s the role of Government. To the best of my understanding, it’s to look after the interests of citizens, and public education is one of its core instruments. It’s hard to contemplate in this climate why they would outsource this responsibility to industry under the Joyce logic.

I’m sure industry doesn’t want it either. I guess they want to be productive and simply want to employ capable people to help them be that. Maybe they can’t afford, in either cost or time, to train entry level workers. I’m sure Woolworths doesn’t grow the potatoes it sells or insists they inspect every Corn Flake. Sure, they have standards and insist on them, but they take finished products.

At this point I enter heresy territory as far as VET is concerned. Are employers telling their industry leaders they no longer want the model? Is it better that Government actually takes responsibility for a quality vocational education system that supplies capable graduates, just like we do with universities? Sure, there would still be work-based learning, where it makes sense to hone the craft, and the education experience would be directed to well prepared and well-rounded workers.

Apprenticeships may be too far an ask, but surely something new is needed for traineeships. Either way, with employers not engaging, we need strategies to ensure the new technology of production and services across Australia are transferred across  to firms. That’s why there’s public provision.

Heresy it may be. But if the canary is no longer singing, someone had to raise it!