From your business to our business: Industry and vocational education in Australia

Over the last 20 years, the voice of business and its impact upon Australian vocational education have transformed. These changes range from enterprise reluctance to be involved through to industry determining what is taught and assessed, and how, as well as the principles for administering vocational education, and attempts to use vocational education to reform the schooling system. These transformations and government complicity in them are enmeshed in the restructuring of the Australian economy allegedly in response to an increasingly competitive and globalised economy. They were also facilitated by vocational education continuing to be misunderstood and having low status. However, the expanded leadership role afforded Australian business has not been matched by its purchase on the complexity of educational issues and practice, including the need to encompass other interests (e.g. small business and students). While vocational education has become the business of business, it seems it is business not understood. Even in addressing its own purposes (i.e. work readiness), business has demonstrated a preference for ideological and naive imperatives that have proved inadequate. Along the way, the goals for vocational education and standing of its institutions, practitioners and students have all been transformed, probably to their detriment. Billett, S (2004) From your business to our business: Industry and vocational education in Australia. Oxford Review of Education 30 (1) 12-33 Bio statement Through part of the period referred to in this article, Stephen Billett worked in vocational education as a teacher, administrator, teacher educator and in policy formation. He now works in higher education researching work and work-related learning from social and cultural psychological perspectives. Contact details Stephen Billett, School of Vocational, Technology and Arts Education Faculty of Education, Griffith University, Nathan, 4111, Australia Phone: 61 7 3875 55855 Fax: 61 7 3875 6868 e-mail: [email protected] Introduction This special edition of the Oxford Review of Education focuses on the engagement of business in and its impact upon policy and practice within vocational education. Yet what constitutes ‘business’ is a slippery concept in the Australian context. Therefore, initially some issues of definition need to be addressed. These also serve to introduce the changing policy and practice context of Australian vocational education and training over the last two decades. ‘Business’ can constitute private sector enterprises that assert their voices either individually or collectively through peak bodies. However, such a conception requires qualification. The influence on policy exerted by business has not been broadly representative. Small businesses complain that the policies and provisions of vocational education fail to serve their interests (Roffey et al., 1996), claiming that large enterprises’ needs predominate. Viewing business as only private sector enterprises also excludes large public utilities (e.g. railway, power generating, public works departments) that have traditionally sponsored apprentices, yet whose practices changed upon being corporatised. Moreover, in the decade leading up to the late 1990s, business (as the voice of large private sector enterprises) engaged with organised labour in collaborative bi-partite decision-making processes that ordered policy and practice within vocational education. Through this period, the term ‘industry’ became the key organising concept reflecting the bi-partisanship of both labour and capital. Industry in this form was granted leadership over the national vocational education system by government, albeit within the constraints of prescribed policy frameworks. Given that this period of industry leadership was marked by an unprecedented level of external intervention on the vocational education and training system, which had significant long-term impact, it is essential to evaluate this manifestation of businesses’ impact. These bipartite industry arrangements have gradually withered under a conservative government with peak employer associations now increasingly shaping policy. For instance, these peak bodies are using vocational education in schools to reform schooling for their purposes. So, there have been changes in the form of the business voice, its engagement in and impact upon vocational education in Australia. This paper proposes that, in the last two decades, business in its changing forms has been granted a significant leadership role by government. However, this leadership has been exercised in the interests of large enterprises, rather than the broader national interest. In that time, although there have been increases in participation in vocational education, and across all age groups, and some growth in the scope of offerings, overall the leadership of business has failed to select and enact policies and practices to advance vocational education in ways commensurate with the significant public resources that it has commanded. Instead, this leadership has largely rendered reactive an emerging educational sector that is deserving of higher status and a greater understanding and acceptance of its purposes and processes. This judgment is premised on the failure to improve the quality and acceptability of vocational education, including its learning processes and outcomes as well as being inclusive of the broad range of constituent interests. It is acknowledged that this leadership has been enacted in times more economically difficult than those of an earlier era and that, ultimately, government is responsible for affording industry and business this leadership. However, there is strong and consistent evidence of a lack of consideration of salient educational processes and outcomes under business leadership. Business might counter such claims by highlighting the wider and growing participation in vocational education and also by pointing to their inability to secure the kinds of changes and outcomes they desired from a reluctant system. However, the former says little about the quality of this provision. The latter assertion is a feature of its leadership. Those directed to implement what business and government together mandated -i.e. teachers and administrators -were not effectively engaged or included (Baverstock, 1996; Smith & Nagle, 1995), nor were those who were to be subjected to it -i.e. students --(Anderson, 1998). Instead, business capitalised on government’s highly mandated and top-down approach to curriculum development, assessment practices and ordering of vocational education provisions for its own purposes. The It is therefore proposed that business in Australia failed to exercise its leadership role responsibly in the broader national interest or with the breadth of considerations required of a national educational sector. Rather than being guided by sound advice, research and good practice, ideological imperatives appear to have predominated. While not questioning the legitimacy of business as one interested party, the concern here is about the degree of the exercise of business leadership and its outcomes. The case is structured as follows. The changing conceptions of business advice, their focus and impact is discussed first. To assist make judgments about their worth, the purposes of vocational education are briefly overviewed. Then, some examples of the impact of business decision-making on vocational education are examined. In concluding, the consequences for the relatively nascent vocational education system and the broader set of interests that it serves are reviewed. Changing conceptions, focus and impact of business advice Over the last twenty years, the character of the advice of business and its role in the formation of educational policy and practice have changed, as have their impact. In overview, this section identifies and discusses the changing conception and impact of the voice of business upon Australian vocational education under the headings of: enterprise reluctance; industry bipartitism; and the voice of business. Enterprise reluctance In the 1970s and early 1980s, it seems, Australian enterprises were largely uninterested in vocational education except in its capacity to supply enough skilled employees during a period of high economic activity and buoyant employment. Enterprises were reluctant to engage with vocational education systems, and were uncritical of their provisions or graduates (White, 1985). These were matters for educators. Enterprise priorities were to employ, produce and profit, not engage with or be critical of the vocational education system. By the mid-1970s, technical education had almost 100 years of history in Australia, commencing with the Mechanics Institutes and Schools of Mines. However, the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) system was only recently formed and had a far broader charter than these earlier institutions. It was largely a product of public expenditure on social infrastructure by a reforming Labor government in the early 1970s. TAFE emerged not as just another tier in the Australian educational system, but as a sector with a unique focus on lifelong learning. A founding premise was the recognition that life demanded continuous learning and adaptation. Completing one's initial education was seen as a starting point rather than an educational endpoint (Byrne & Kirby, 1989; Kangan, 1974). By intent, TAFE was to be distinct from other educational sectors that focused on educating young people at particular discrete stages or levels in their development. Both broad educational goals associated with individuals’ development and the creation of specific skills encompassed TAFE's original purposes. These purposes were central to what Kangan (1974) proposed for the rapidly growing TAFE sector. In doing so, the TAFE provisions, which largely constituted what was taken as adult and vocational education, were focused on ‘learning to live’ (Byrne & Kirby, 1989). These included accounting educationally for individuals’ life experience and a respect for and acknowledgement of learning that occurred outside of educational institutions (something only taken up recently in the other sectors). However, despite attempts to be inclusive and enact a broad and novel charter, throughout the late 1970s and 80s, most TAFE participation was by young people pursuing initial vocational qualifications. There was only limited participation by recurrent or late entry education students (Byrne & Kirby, 1989). This low level of interest and participation by adult Australians may have been a product of the same buoyant labour market that was shaping enterprises’ lack of interest. There was less competition for jobs and employers were less selective, and the need for ongoing development was not as pressing as in contemporary times. The period between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s was wholly important for the establishment of vocational education in Australia. It was a time of rapid development and search for a clearly defined and particular purpose. Although never fully enacted, the key focus on ‘learning to live’ was soon to be transformed into a concern for learning to work. Moreover, the relations between business and the vocational education system also changed. Industry bipartitism The deterioration of the labour market and stresses on its economic base in the 1980s, led to the restructuring of parts of the Australian economy and as a consequence, vocational education policy focussed on becoming more export orientated and import competing (Dawkins, 1988; Dawkins & Holding, 1987). In particular, the manufacturing sector, with its long association with vocational education through trade training, sought to improve its prospects for survival and development through micro economic reforms that included vocational education. At this time, both the role of business and its engagement with vocational education changed. These changes transformed the goals of the nascent vocational education system, reshaped its purposes and established an orthodoxy of practice that was quite distinct from the intentions of the 1970s and which, in many ways, continues to the present. Under a series of changes advanced by another reforming Labor government, bi-partite processes were initiated and enacted. Selectively deploying some aspects of consensus models of governance from northern Europe, the voices of labour (i.e. unions) and capital (i.e. employer organisations) were engaged and, arguably, co-opted by government to provide collaborative leadership for vocational education (Dawkins & Holding, 1987). Through their collaboration, they shaped much of the vocational education policy and practice over the next decade and half. Vocational education became embedded in the nation’s industrial relations processes and was subject to what collaboration between these parties secured. Unions and peak employer groups, organised under categories of industry sectors, were given the key role in policy decision-making, albeit within governmentally determined parameters (Dawkins, 1988). Government actively supported this industry leadership through the provision of administrative infrastructure. This included the formation of national industry competency standards and a body to enact them (the National Training Board), as well as industry’s direct control over the development of national curriculum documents associated with the particular industry standards (National Training Board, 1992). Moreover, a national training authority was established and supported in partnership by both the federal and state governments. The newly formed Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) legitimised and facilitated industry leadership through organising and maintaining its involvement in all levels of decision-making. This included the courses to be taught, their content and the means by which they are the taught and assessed (Australian National Training Authority, 1993a). Uniform processes were implemented across Australian states and territories for the accreditation of courses and their certification. Industrybased vocational education policies included the mandated use of nationally endorsed curriculum documents, adherence to competency standards which were prosecuted by mandatory administrative measures that extended to the offering of vocational courses, legal prescriptions about certification and regulations of the qualifications of individuals who were to teach in industry developed programs. In all, a key concern was to shift the emphasis from ‘supply-side’ considerations to ‘demand-side’ needs (Lundberg, 1994), albeit in mandated and regulated ways. This process of reform was facilitated by the strength of the centralised model of governance which allowed the federal government to act in ways unthinkable in the US and without the extensive and broad consultations required many Western European countries, including those from which the bi-partite processes were borrowed. This reform process, referred to the ‘national training reform agenda’, was closely linked to changes in national industrial awards. These included linking remuneration and career progression with skill development. Progression through pay levels based on annual increments was to be changed to a requirement to secure more skills and have those skills certified. Through this period, the voice of business was constrained by arrangements that demanded bipartisanship. Decisions about what had to be taught, on what basis it would be assessed and how the vocational education system would be administered were all subject to consensual bipartite processes. However, it would be misleading to suggest that these industry processes were broadly inclusive. Teachers, students and small businesses were respectively silenced, ignored or unable to be heard. Despite both unions and employer organisations purportedly being responsive to their constituents, they were also directed to their own corporate interests. For instance, with support from key industry groups, government pushed ahead with the implementation of non-graded competency based assessment (Employment and Skills Formation Council, 1988). This was against the wishes of many individual employers. They wanted graded assessment of their employees (e.g. apprentices) and to assist select employees on the basis of relative performance in the future (Australian National Training Authority, 1993b; Rumsey & Associates, 1997). Yet their concerns were apparently subordinated to corporate bi-partite interests. Also, industry supported government micro-economic reforms aimed at enhancing the scope and potential of workers’ discretion and practice were conveniently ignored in the de-professionalisation and reduced discretion to be afforded vocational educators, who were also largely unionists (Billett, 1995). After all, decision making and curriculum development were too important to be left to educators (Dawkins, 1988). Under arrangements that sought to reform and make efficient publicly owned institutions, business principles were applied to the administration of vocational education, with the marketisation and the opening up of a field of vocational education providers (Anderson, 1998; Anderson, 1997). In each State and Territory, any provider of training could now tender for funds previously reserved for the TAFE system. This precipitated a rise of entrepreneurialism and competitive behaviour resulting in the restructuring of TAFE institutions and their administration, and often provoked competitive relations between institutions. It also transformed the vocational education sector from being something largely provided through TAFE colleges or institutes, to a broader field of providers, dubbed the ‘training market’ (Anderson, 1998). These providers included private vocational colleges, industry training centres, trade training centres, high schools, enterprises, charities, and even individuals in leased properties. A salient and associated impact has been the transformation of the discourse used to conceptualise, discuss and value vocational education. Although the vocational education discourse has a long tradition of pragmatism (e.g. the common use of training, concerned to meet the requirements of vocational practice), the last decade and a half has seen the dominance of an economic discourse. The term ‘providers’ is used to describe the range of agencies, institutions and businesses accredited to teach certified national modules. The connotation of ‘providers’ denies them a role in doing anything other than teaching courses prepared elsewhere. There is little room in that concept for curriculum development and addressing localised need. Pre-determined curriculum packages are to be delivered with fidelity by providers. During this time, job titles within vocational education institutions also changed to reflect commercial imperatives. Leadership roles in vocational colleges are no longer titled principals, education officers, senior teachers or curriculum heads. Instead, Chief Executive Officer or Director are now common titles used in senior (executive) positions, with titles such as program directors being adopted. Students have also become commodified and valued by the kinds of funds they attract (e.g. international full fee-paying students, disadvantaged groups who attract government subsidies) and in the quantum of students for achieving economies of scale in their teaching (Anderson, 1998) mass lectures, in preference to practical sessions. Terms such as ‘competence’, ‘training packages’ and ‘competency standards’ have been granted legitimacy through mandated arrangements that marginalise and displace other curriculum concepts, such as learning processes. The power of discourse is its capacity to legitimise some ideas and de-legitimises others (Ball, 1990). Law (1994) claims that institutions pattern behaviour through both conscious and unconscious choices of those who engaged in them. To object to these reforms and to speak outside the dominant and accepted discourse was to act irrationally and position the speaker as being incompetent within the dominant discourse and the practices that it reflects. Hence, it is easy to marginalise individuals who hold alternate views as lacking savvy and not understanding the ‘main game’. When working in the vocational education system in the early 1990s, to refer to the social and community obligations of TAFE could lead to derogatory accusations such as ‘wearing Kangan’s caftan’ or as being ‘an educationalist’. The impact of industry was not confined to reforming mainstream vocational education. Schools were encouraged to assist their students’ transition from school to work. Key competencies required for the workplace were identified (Mayer, 1992) and schools asked to teach these to ensure that students were ‘employment-ready’ on leaving school. This policy initiative coincided with a period of high youth unemployment and claims that schools were not preparing students adequately for the world of work. Teachers were held to be complicit in youth disillusionment, and apparently even their suicide (Wiltshire, 1999). The industry partners supported the idea that both schools and vocational education institutions should be ‘producing’ job ready graduates. Indeed, in some instances, business representatives were promoting the provision of vocational education and training in schools not only to secure a vocational focus, but also to place additional competitive pressure on TAFE institutes (Billett, 1998, 2000). In summarising the impact of industry through this period (Chappell, Hawke, & Schofield, 2002) the following points are identified. Firstly, the universal implementation of competency-based training was a device used largely to enable industry to secure a major influence on the content of vocational education programs. Secondly, industry representative bodies have established themselves at national levels to ensure that the interests of industry were engaged in most levels of decisionmaking processes associated with courses to be offered, their content and how they would be taught and assessed. Thirdly, the vocational education sector was marketised to provide industry with greater choice and to lead the change from a supply-side to a demand-side driven vocational education system. Fourthly, the spokes people for industry, including those of business, had assumed a range of roles within the vocational education system that embedded their influence in the process of policy formation and direction, as well as the means by which the vocational education provision would be enacted. Chappell, Hawke and Schofield (2002) claim benefits for industry arising from these arrangements, including: (i) a greater range of providers of vocational education; (ii) greater choice of training providers; (iii) the fashioning a more responsive TAFE system; (iv) an increase in the quantum of those holding vocational qualifications; and (v) the establishment of mechanisms by which the interests of industry can be perpetuated. The degree to which these were constituted as benefits, and for whom, is discussed later in the paper. However, it is noteworthy that these benefits are highly sectoral and specific. It should be noted that Australian business collectively resisted and eventually overturned the Training Guarantee Scheme that was introduced to systematically augment the national funding of vocational education and provide a common basis for enterprise contributions to building the national skill base. Moreover, although there have been industry generated initiatives to fund vocational education provisions and these differ across sectors, such as those in place for the construction industry in South Australia and the brick and block laying sector in Victoria, these are derived from identified and quite specific needs (e.g. concerns about the skill shortages and ageing workforce), these remain isolated examples. Despite all the input from business and industry, their choice of the uniform provision of competency standards, competency-based training, modularised curriculum units, generic competencies and national certification has failed to generate the intended kinds of responses by enterprises. Enterprise participation in apprenticeships declined markedly from the mid-1970s (State Training Board of Victoria, 1995, NCVER 2000), a trend which continued through the period of leadership by business. In this way, the voice of industry seems not to have been reflecting the sentiments of the enterprises for whom it purported to speak. Also, the national uniform provisions of vocational education were identified as being unable to address specific enterprise needs. This concern was accentuated by change in the focus of industrial processes from national awards to enterprise bargaining. Both unions and employers were interested to move away from national industrial agreement. Unions, who had watched their memberships decline through the years of these agreements, were keen to embrace enterprise bargaining because it offered a mechanism through which members would see union delegates and officials negotiate in their workplaces on their behalf. Employers looked to enterprise agreements to tailor conditions of work and remuneration to the particular requirements of workplaces. However, these enterprise based negotiations often led to the exclusion of provisions for vocational education and training (Guthrie & Barnett, 1996; Misko, 1996). Government was keen to reduce industrial agreements to a limited number of key conditions, often excluding issues associated with equity and vocational training that were seen to clutter these agreements. Gone were the stipulations that linked employment to training. Instead, greater flexibility of training was demanded. Here, a key weakness of placing vocational education directly into industrial processes became apparent. That is, vocational education was not a core concern of the