Benefits And Challenges Of Vocational Education And Training (VET) For Australian Employers

Development of Human Resources

Discuss about the Two Interests that Australian Employers for Vocational Education Training.

VET refers to Vocational Education and Training in Australia. This programme is aimed to educate and train the people for providing and enhancing the skills required for work. It is beneficial for the people who want to join the work force for the first time, rejoin the workforce after a break, upgrade the skills in the existing career and/or move into different career (Asqa.gov.au 2018). Various Registered Training Organizations (RTOs) and universities provide the VET courses in Australia. These contain various types of qualifications, such as, Certificate I to IV, Diploma, Advanced Diploma, Vocational graduate certificate or diploma and English Language courses. Developing and enhancing all types of soft and hard professional skills for the existing and potential workforce is the main aim of the VET courses (Moodie 2015). The essay will focus on the discussion on two benefits and two challenges for the Australian employers regarding the VET courses.

VET courses, similar to other professional courses and training, have some advantages and disadvantages. The benefits from the point of view of the employers in Australia are as follows.

The primary benefit of VET for the Australian employers is the development of the human resources. Due to the VET, the employee pool of the nation becomes job ready, and the existing workers become more skilled and competitive. The employers build up an association with the RTOSs to provide them the insight about the current job requirements in the industry. According to the inputs from the organizational sector, the RTOs design the course programmes and make workers trained for specific jobs. This is beneficial in terms of reducing frictional unemployment in the nation. As stated by Eichhorst et al. (2012), frictional unemployment arises when there is a mismatch in the skills possessed by the individuals and the skills required in the industry. VET helps in decreasing the gaps in the expected and acquired skills of the workforce. Through a VET course, an individual can improve and upgrade their qualifications, improve the career or job opportunities, and achieve the personal goals. In many regions, such as, Queensland, the government and the employers from the industry come together to develop the courses in business, trades and construction, healthcare, arts and designing, tourism and hospitality, science and technology and English (Asqa.gov.au 2018). Since, the industry employers are associated with VET, the certificates are accepted everywhere across the nation. At the same time, the industry employers are interested in engaging with VET because they get a job ready work force to employ. That helps in reducing the waste of time in getting the right candidate with the right skills (Polidano and Tabasso 2014).

Returns on Investment in VET

Secondly, there are many returns for the employers from the investment in VET. Apart from getting skilled workforce during recruitment, there is also financial gain. Recruiting a skilled candidate helps in reducing the overhead and on-the-job or internal training costs. Implementing internal training and development programs for enhancing the skills of existing and new employees incurs more cost in relation to the share of many employers investing in the VET courses in the RTOs (Eichhorst et al. 2012). It also brings about more benefits in terms of employees. Within a particular organization, they would get specific training, which could limit their career progress, while in the VET courses, the options for education and training are many and they have flexibility in the career choices, and a national acceptability makes the employees confident about the certificates. This is reflected in the productivity of the employees, which is beneficial for the employers. Hence, the pull factors for investing in the VET for the employers are the quality assurances, productivity improvements, developing new technological skills, risk management, and reducing skill shortages and the push factors are the industrial requirements, saving of the time for training and retention of the skilled workforce (Mavromaras, Mahuteau and Wei 2013). Moreover, the employers can get more skilled people to employ from. This reduces the cost and time during recruitment. A specific training may bring improvements in specific skills of the employees, but a broader training offered in VET enhances the motivational factors for the employees, which is beneficial for the employees also.

There are few challenges for the employers in Australia in engaging with VET. These challenges are mostly concerned with the costs and resourcing issues in relation to the training system.

Firstly, it is found in Australia that, as the number of potential workforce availing the VET is increasing multiple times in every year, it is becoming difficult for the industry to create employment opportunities for all. Hence, accommodating a large number of skilled workers has been creating challenges for the Australian employers (Griffin 2014). Along with that, the financial strength of the companies are creating challenges in investing in the training and employing the resources. Since, the financial incentives and support from the government are not sufficient, majority of the organizations find the investment in the training are too expensive (Noonan 2016). This is creating major barriers for the small and medium enterprises. Hence, the burden falls on the larger organizations. This reduces the interest of the larger organizations to invest more on developing the human resources. Thus, lack of sufficient financial support from the government creates challenges for the industrial employers while investing in human resource training (Polidano and Tabasso 2012).

Cost and Resourcing Issues in the Training System

Secondly, the training programs should be designed according to the market needs. The employers find it quite challenging to coordinate with the RTOs and design and develop the curriculum for the VET. This is a critical requirement for the VET programmes. Based on the industry requirement, the curriculum needs to be developed to achieve the best and most effective results. As the needs and nature of the industries are continuously changing, the VET courses should be upgraded on a regular basis, and for that, the employers should contribute in providing insights about needs of the industries. However, it is seen that, in many cases, the employers could not provide time to the RTOs to get involved in the curriculum design and development. To make a most relevant and effective curriculum, a high amount and quality time should be spent. The technologies in the workplace are rapidly changing and an effective VET curriculum gets outdated and obsolete quite rapidly (fortresslearning.com.au 2018). For this, both the employers and RTOs should come together and coordinate to design new curriculum for the training. At the same time, the trainers should also be updated with the new changes and technologies. Thus, it is a challenge for the employers in Australia to provide the trends of changes and requirement in the industries to the RTOs and coordinate with them for developing and upgrading the VET curriculum.

Conclusion

The vocational education and training (VET) programs are quite popular in Australia. These courses have got many advantages and disadvantages not only for the students, but also for the employers. The Australian employers advocate the usefulness of VET, as it prepares a pool of workers for the job market and saves the time and cost for internal and job specific training. National acceptance of the VET certificates also helps the employees to opt for VET and develop or enhance their skills. However, the VET programs are under-funded and the employers find it challenging to participate in developing and upgrading the curriculum for VET in collaboration with the RTOs to make it effective with the changing needs of the industries. Hence, the employers in Australia enjoy both the benefit and challenges of engaging with VET. However, it can be said that, the benefits of VET are more widespread than the challenges. The students as well as employers prefer VET as it helps in developing some skills for the job market that is beneficial for reducing frictional unemployment. 

References

Asqa.gov.au, 2018. The benefits of a high-quality vocational education and training sector | Australian Skills Quality Authority. [online] Asqa.gov.au. Available at: https://www.asqa.gov.au/standards/introduction/benefits-high-quality-vocational-education-and-training-sector [Accessed 7 May 2018].

Eichhorst, W., Rodríguez-Planas, N., Schmidl, R. and Zimmermann, K., 2012. A roadmap to vocational education and training systems around the world.

fortresslearning.com.au, 2018. Challenges Facing VET in Australia. [online] Fortress Learning. Available at: https://fortresslearning.com.au/challenges-facing-vet-in-australia/ [Accessed 7 May 2018].

Griffin, T., 2014. Disadvantaged Learners and VET to Higher Education Transitions. Occasional Paper. National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER).

Mavromaras, K., Mahuteau, S. and Wei, Z., 2013. Labour mobility and vocational education and training in Australia. National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

Moodie, G., 2015. Vocational training is too complex, too job-specific, too underfunded. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/vocational-training-is-too-complex-too-job-specific-too-underfunded-36204 [Accessed 7 May 2018].

Noonan, P., 2016. VET funding in Australia: Background trends and future directions.

Polidano, C. and Tabasso, D., 2014. Making it real: The benefits of workplace learning in upper-secondary vocational education and training courses. Economics of Education Review, 42, pp.130-146.