Reconceptualising vocational education and training systems in broader policy domains: monitoring and evaluation

Abstract

We focus on how the present Vocational Education and Training (VET) system in Australia might be modified to better accommodate possible VET futures change. We begin with the premise that VET’s role is to contribute to skills acquisition through formal education and training. We propose a simple VET futures role and purpose statement and outline a possible futures public policy environment in which its actualisation might need to be achieved. We continue, first by developing a policy intervention framework and a monitoring and evaluation framework germane to that futures purpose and policy mix, and second, by employing those frameworks to explain how a futures VET system might function. We discuss the present VET system in the context of the constructed futures VET system and draw conclusions from comparisons made. We find (a) that skills policy should be redefined to accommodate broader economic and social policy contexts in general, and sustainable industry policy in particular, and (b) that a more sophisticated policy mix, consisting of unified and complementary supply-side and demand-side interventions, should replace the VET sector’s reliance on simplistic supply-side policy responses alone. We outline an incremental approach for transforming the present VET system into the envisioned futures VET system and check and balance our findings through international comparisons.