This post was originally published on this site
Sometimes we become distracted by what isn’t working in our VET system and pay too little attention to what works well. An outsider’s perspective can be the antidote to our irritations. That’s exactly what’s provided by Gabriel Sanchez Zinny in a blog post on the US edition of The Huffington Post.
Zinny is the Executive Director at INET (National Institute of Technological Education), a part of the Argentine Ministry of Education. He travelled to Australia recently to pick up tips that might be useful for Argentina’s VET system. This included a meeting with VDC CEO Martin Powell on 14 June, kindy arranged by Victorian Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.
The Huffington Post piece starts out with a quick overview of the virtues of Australia’s VET system:
Australia has developed in the last decades one of the most admired vocational education and training systems of the world, based on various factors: fluidity between titles and certifications, from high school to postgraduate studies and PhD’s; a skill-based educational offer, and linked to the ability demand from the productive sector; funding mechanisms linked to the number of students enrolled in the different institutions; and a strong regulation and assessment conducted by the national and local governments.
Zinny makes the straightforward but resounding observation that ‘As is expected in any educational system that works, teaching is a priority in Australia’. That’s as good a cue as any for VET teachers, trainers and assessors to take a deep bow.