A survey of over 500 teachers and trainers in the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector was carried out to examine whether their teaching practices and approaches varied with their qualification levels. The survey, carried out with teachers and trainers from different types of training providers -- public and private -- formed…

In Australia, the question of the level and nature of qualifications for vocational education and training (VET) teachers is a highly contested and political topic. VET teachers are only required to have a pre-university, certificate level pedagogical qualification, the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. They possess substantially…

This paper uses evidence from an Australian research project into under-recognized skills in occupations, gathered through industry-level interviews and company case studies, to examine VET curricula. The project, funded by the Australian Research Council, focused on skill in jobs traditionally regarded in Australia as unskilled. As part of the…

The quality of teaching in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia has been an area of concern for much of the twenty-first century (e.g. Department of Education and Training, 2016). While much debate has taken place about ways forward, there has been little substantive progress in reforming the education and professional…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether the availability of qualifications through work-based traineeships in Australia assists social inclusion. Design/methodology/approach: Industry case studies, of the finance and cleaning industries, were undertaken as part of a national research project on quality in traineeships. The two…

This paper explores the implications for assessment of embedding qualifications from the vocational education and training (VET) sector within university qualifications. As VET qualifications are now all competency based, assessment in the two sectors is quite different, since universities have generally eschewed competency-based training and…

This research study attempts to determine how teenage workers develop their employability skills in their first formal jobs. Case studies were carried out in 12 Australian enterprises of varying sizes and drawn from different industry areas. In each case study the following staff were interviewed: senior managers and/or human resources management…

The changing role of staff development for teachers and trainers in Australia's vocational education and training (VET) sector was examined. Data collection strategies were as follows: a preliminary analysis of VET staff development provision; a literature review of mainly Australian sources; a Delphi survey involving 31 key stakeholders in VET…