Workplace Development

NCVER’s “Total VET students and courses 2021” reports that a total of 4.3 million students were enrolled in nationally recognised vocational education and training (VET) in 2021. This was up 9% from the numbers in 2020. Earlier VDC News articles reported on VET in schools and Government funded numbers. They, like the numbers reported here,

With skill shortages on everyone’s mind at present, retaining students and minimising attrition – particularly in key occupational areas – is an important issue. So how can early leaving be minimised? Here are some lessons from Europe. A working paper from CEDEFOP, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, published in July 2022

The Jobs and Skills Summit was held on 1 and 2 September at Parliament House in Canberra. In the ‘lead in’ there has been quite a bit of press from commentators and luminaries alike. In the last issue of VDC News, Treasury’s issues paper underpinning the Summit was highlighted. Here’s a little of what is

During National Skills Week Victoria’s Minister for Training and Skills Gayle Tierney released the Victorian Skills Plan aimed at meeting the skills and workforce challenges the State faces. The Plan aims to do this “through a more organised, planned, responsive, steady skills pipeline with “clear, easy-to-navigate pathways and provide adaptable skills development opportunities and clear,

What’s AVETRA? AVETRA is Australasia’s only national, independent association of researchers in the VET sector. AVETRA offers a range of services, but notably they produce VET research publications including Research Today – an e-magazine (not unlike VDC News) that shares and celebrates VET practitioner research. This may be research about VET or research and innovation

This paper from the OECD: Who Cares about Using Education Research in Policy and Practice? looks at the enormous effort and investment that is made to conduct and use education research to advise policy and practice. However, and as the paper points out, “using research systematically and at scale in education policy making and practice remains a

A new NCVER report entitled “Journeying through VET: a case study of foundation skills learners” is a piece of ’exploratory research’ that aimed to “learn more about those who undertake nationally recognised foundation skills programs after school and to investigate their training and employment outcomes.” It found that “foundation skills learners often embark on complex

VDC is thrilled to have secured Keynote Speaker, David Bartlett, for the VDC Teaching & Learning Conference (online 17 & 18 Nov 2022). Join David in his presentation on “the death of the job, the future of work” and how technology is stealing our jobs, right? Wrong. But technology and ubiquitous connectivity is irreversibly changing

Micro-credentials are certainly getting a lot of attention recently. A briefing note by CEDEFOP published in June this year asks the question posed by the title of this article. It’s also a topic touched on several times before in these pages, and several earlier VDC News articles that can be accessed here, here, and here.