The challenges of delivering vocational education in Australia

The numbers are in for 2023 – is it time to celebrate the successes or to be concerned by the perceptions and politics of VET?

The National Council for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) recently published the Latest VET Statistics.

At a glance, it’s great to see that 92.2% of apprentices and trainees who completed their training were employed afterwards – this is encouraging news to ensure Australia has a skilled workforce of tradies in the future.

There’s also impressive numbers coming from the school sector, where 252,105 high school students are also completing nationally recognised training through VET.  Queensland is leading the way with 101,780 VET students with the data showing enrolments are continuing to increase each year.

There are many pathways for VET to be delivered in a school environment including the schools being an RTO, or partnering with an external RTO, or students enrolling externally with Private RTOs or TAFE.  Most importantly, these pathways provide flexible alternatives to students who are not following a more academic stream preparing them to work in a variety of industries and giving students a launch pad to the workforce.

Now here’s the drum roll……… In 2023, 5.1 million students were enrolled in at least one VET unit of competency and of these students, 2.3 million were enrolled in nationally recognised programs – this includes Certificates, Diplomas and Advanced Diplomas.

An estimated 27% of the Australian resident population aged 15 to 64 years participated in nationally recognised VET. What does this mean?  Look around your workplace, for every 4 people in the room, 1 person is potentially enrolled in a VET qualification or unit of study.  Showcasing the flexibility of VET, these enrolments could be refresher courses, skillsets, upskilling, recognition of prior learning or flexible training to meet the needs of job seekers and existing workers.

Again, we see that Queensland is just ahead of all other states with 29% of the resident population aged 15 to 64 participating in nationally recognised VET.

Where does the data come from? Every year, all Training Organisations submit their data through Total VET Activity Reporting, this data has been collected since 2015 and is the most reliable reference point that paints a picture of skills development in Australia.

So, who is actually delivering the training? – This is a big job!

In 2023, 81.7% of all training was delivered by private training providers.

Of all students, 1.3 million were government-funded and 3.9 million were domestic full fee-paying students.  Full fee-paying students might be funded by the employer or paying for themselves. 

Government funding for the VET sector is provided through various national and state programs, with both public TAFEs and private providers receiving funding, however, in the last 3 years there has been increasing funding going directly to the Public TAFE institutes.  Curiously, this increase in funding has not resulted in overall increase in the uptake of enrolments away from Private providers.

With a continued push to fund TAFE instead of funding the sector as a whole, and what some perceive as an anti-competition policy towards Private providers, the risk is that VET loses its most important attributes – the ability to be flexible and pivot to the needs of industry and students. 

The secret to success of many Private providers is their smaller size and infrastructure and their focus on niche areas.  Private providers have a history of providing individualised support that is reflected in excellent student satisfaction rates.

Looks like Private providers are the secret weapon of the VET sector, often overlooked, often underfunded, often blamed when things go wrong, and yet totally there for the challenge of delivering quality nationally recognised training for 77.6% of students who were enrolled in national recognised training in 2023.  Just 15.1% were enrolled in TAFE institutes and 2.2% were enrolled in schools.

The success is reflected in the numbers.

89% of qualification completers (graduates) were satisfied with the training overall.

56.8% of employers used at least one form of accredited training.

54.4% of employers used unaccredited training.

Only 9.7% of employers provided no training.

Let’s continue to make VET great in Australia by supporting both Public and Private providers to give students and employers choice and opportunities to select the training which best meets their needs.

The road to success looks like this – a fair and equitable funding model that is directed by student and employer choice.  A VET sector that has true National recognition with no TAFE v’s Private Provider – Us and Them mentality.  Clear and concise guidelines for all training providers working on the same playing field.  Continued rigor with trainers and assessors who are well skilled in both training and assessment and their industry expertise, and respect for the sector that is modelled from the top down.  Government must acknowledge the effort required to build skills for the future and the outcomes from those who do it.