Vocational Education In Australia

It was in the year 1960 and 1970 that the traditional industries declined. There was a continuous emergence of new communication and financial industries. There was an increase in the number of women in the workforce. There was also a decrease in the trade and technical training given to the students of various academic courses (Graf, 2013). All these instances ultimately gave rise to an increase in the preparatory and pre-vocational training. It was in the 1980s that the vocational training started gaining importance in the developed countries like Australia. In the 1990s, almost all the states, territories and the Australian Government as well established the training forum namely, Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) and a cooperative vocational training system as well (Agrawal, 2013).

Vocational training is indeed important to support development and maintenance of professional skills and capabilities. Many big and small companies have been found to provide vocational training to its workers. This has helped them to gain better performance and achieve better production. As pointed out by Dustmann and Schönberga, (2012), when training is given to an individual, it helps to develop certain skills that are considered for obtaining better results. The flexibility of the education system in Australia helps the student to gain better knowledge on a particular subject without the necessity of completing the full qualification. In major states of Australia, anyone above the age of 15 years becomes eligible to undertake vocational training to develop their skills and be ready to face the challenges of business industry (Hill, Hill & Perlitz, 2016).

In Australia, there are over 4400 registered vocational training organizations. Among these, 3100 are privately owned organizations (ntis.gov.au, 2016). More than 79% of the students who undertake vocational courses enroll in the private organizations. There are around 1.7 million registered students in the private institutions compare to 950 thousands of students in the Government Universities (ntis.gov.au, 2016). Training is given to the students in traditional classrooms, in the actual workplace, virtual classrooms by using internet or even by the means of correspondence or in community venues (Wheelahan, 2015).

It is expected that in order to meet the increasing demand in the market and competitive nature of the market, every employee has to be capable enough to deal with any kind of situation at any point of time. There has been an increase in the cross-cultural composition and mixed economy in the industrial sector (Biavaschi et al., 2012). Apart from compulsory education that is provided to the students and others, providing vocational training is equally important (ntis.gov.au, 2016). Therefore, it can be easily said that the there is a great scope of the increase of vocation training courses and institutes in major developed countries. In Australia, as well there has been a continuous rise of the demand of these vocational courses.

References:

Agrawal, T. (2013). Vocational education and training programs (VET): An Asian perspective. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 14(1), 15-26.

Biavaschi, C., Eichhorst, W., Giulietti, C., Kendzia, M. J., Muravyev, A., Pieters, J., ... & Zimmermann, K. F. (2012). Youth unemployment and vocational training.

Dustmann, C., & Schönberga, U. (2012). What makes firm-based vocational training schemes successful? The role of commitment. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 4(2), 36-61.

Graf, L. (2013). The hybridization of vocational training and higher education in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland (p. 302). Budrich UniPress.

Hirshleifer, S., McKenzie, D., Almeida, R., & Ridao‐Cano, C. (2015). The impact of vocational training for the unemployed: experimental evidence from Turkey. The Economic Journal.

ntis.gov.au, Australian Government Department of Education and Training, Available at: https://www.ntis.gov.au/ [Retrieved on 26-8-2016 ]

Wheelahan, L. (2015). The future of Australian vocational education qualifications depends on a new social settlement. Journal of Education and Work, 28(2), 126-146.