Presents a national overview of employers' and educators' attitudes concerning school leavers in Australia. Closer examination discloses a greater degree of symbiosis between educators and employers than is traditionally acknowledged. Moving toward shared objectives and cooperative agreements should further quash stereotyped notions. Includes four…

Graduates and employers were surveyed on the mathematical education of engineers in Australia. This paper summarizes their views and contrasts undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The undergraduate courses tend to be more traditional and structured, while there is a need for more work emphasizing mathematical modeling for postgraduate courses.…

A project was conducted in Australia to investigate the most effective ways whereby learners receive informal and formal support to assist them to successfully complete vocational education and training (VET), either in school or in business job-training programs. Data were collected through a literature review, a case study of 11 organizations,…

The skill needs of Australian high-technology start-up companies and the implications of those skill needs for vocational education and training (VET) were examined through a study of 14 start-ups' inherent abilities to access the VET system and on VET's relevance to their needs. The case studies documented a strong demand and role for VET in the…

The question of what makes 'good' literacy and numeracy provision was examined by reviewing interview data from a project on the role of vocational education and training that was conducted by the University of Tasmania's Centre for Research and Learning in Regional Australia. The study dataset included the findings from 541 structured interviews…