This is the third in a series of posts on AARE’s education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about boosting the teacher workforce.
Vocational education and training (VET) is a large and important education sector in Australia. VET supports the learning of a significant number of Australians, with 5.1 million enrolments in 2023. Our economy is transforming rapidly, impacting the knowledge and skills needed by the Australian workforce. VET is the educational powerhouse that supplies the bulk of these needs. The importance of VET cannot be denied, but there is a problem: it is getting harder to recruit teachers. Despite some commentary to the contrary, the overwhelming evidence is that across the sector, providers are finding it difficult to secure and retain teachers.
There are multiple factors in play in the VET teacher supply challenge. One is that VET teaching often pays less than what could be earned in industry. Given cost of living pressures, this is a significant factor in the supply problem. Another is that the nature of the sector requires varying kinds of teacher, from industry experts doing ad hoc teaching and assessment through to career teachers in various modes of employment. The diversity of VET teaching roles means that any response to the supply challenge must be nuanced.
Too much for some, too little for others
The diversity of roles also means the current entry-level qualification – a level 4 Certificate – is too basic for dedicated VET teachers. At the same time too involved for industry people on brief teaching stints. As a result, the qualification to become a VET teacher is a long-standing sore point for the system that undermines teacher satisfaction and system quality, while creating a barrier for some types of teacher.
A more subtle factor in the teacher supply challenge is that the VET system uses an approach to course design that sidelines and can even conflict with teachers’ industry expertise. VET teachers need substantial industry expertise. For instance, if I learn hairdressing, then it can only be from someone who is or was a hairdresser. And system rules require teachers who are not currently practising in industry to maintain their links with and currency. These rules mean VET teachers are always industry experts.
However, when an industry expert opts to become a VET teacher, they are obliged to base their educational work on standardised descriptions of industry tasks and roles. These descriptions (called ‘competencies’ in the system) guide resource production and lesson planning. The competencies are a good idea in principle. The reality is they follow a format not natural to many industry experts and may become outdated quickly.
The problem of unnatural format is important because industry expertise is always quite specific, whereas the format for the statements is one-size-fits-all across everything from creative industries to electrotechnology to enrolled nursing. As a result, the many nuances of industry skills and knowledge are not always communicated adequately in the documents. It makes industry experts teaching from them uncomfortable.
The rates of change pose a real problem
The second problem is becoming a big issue in VET because the rate of change in some industries is outpacing the process for writing the competencies. Research suggests that some of these statements can be out of date by the time they are released, while others are only current for a short time. Teachers are put in a difficult position when faced with out-of-date information. The rules of the system say they must teach exactly what is in the statements, but teachers cannot in good conscience teach what is no longer industry practice.
The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations is responsible for the VET sector and over the last few years has undertaken a VET Qualification Reform process intended to tackle these and other issues. A new era is promised that may lead to a system that allows for rich design principles and curricula. But VET teachers must be central to the creation and maintenance of such a system.
Regardless of which party or parties come to power this election, the reform process must be followed through to the point where teachers given scope to put their expertise to good use. In this way, a declining workforce can be invigorated. Honouring the desire in teachers to advance their industries and pass on quality practices is something that could help everyone linked to the VET system – and that really is everyone!
Steven Hodge is Director of the Griffith Institute for Educational Research (GIER), a large, multidisciplinary community of education researchers. Steven’s research focuses on the relationship between curriculum development and the work of educators. Much of his empirical research has been in the areas of adult and vocational education, concerned with how occupational knowledge and skills are represented in curriculum and how that curriculum is translated for learning.
An interesting and thought-provoking post — thank you Steven for sharing it.
Two points in particular stood out to me. First, you note that “the rate of change in some industries is outpacing the process for writing the competencies.” I would suggest that in education — and this likely includes VET — competencies may need to be framed in more abstract and visionary terms precisely to remain relevant amid rapid change. However, this also demands that VET educators engage intellectually with the competencies, articulating the bases of their interpretations. A purely literal reading does not constitute genuine understanding; rather, it risks reducing competencies to static descriptions rather than living guides for practice. Secondly, you observe: “The rules of the system say they must teach exactly what is in the statements, but teachers cannot in good conscience teach what is no longer industry practice.” This point returns me to the concern raised above. The belief that clarity and meaning can be derived solely from within the competency statements — without critical interpretation — is, at its core, an act of unexamined faith rather than reason. Ultimately, without competencies that are sufficiently abstract and visionary, the system – as you noted – risks binding educators to outdated practices and disincentivising the critical engagement necessary to respond to real-world change. Competencies should not close down professional thought; they should invite it.
Thank you again for raising these important and timely issues for discussion.
Ania Lian
CDU
Thanks for these helpful points, Ania. They made me recall that in the 1990s when the competency approach was being introduced into Australian vocational education, a book by Roger Harris and colleagues appeared that among other things called for competencies to be actively interrogated by educators. They explained that curriculum making should involve ‘getting at’ and ‘challenging’ the meaning of competencies. Unfortunately, the implementation of the competency approach was accompanied by an emphasis on compliance, reduction of funding for provision and Certificate IV-level preparation, all of which encourage literal interpretation. I completely agree that ‘Competencies should not close down professional thought; they should invite it.’ How can the system make a shift to this mindset?
The conundrum of an entry-level qualification for VET teachers might be solved with team teaching. The idea being an industry expert would need only a very basic certificate for teaching, if they work with a more qualified teacher. They might even gain their teaching qualification this way.
I was surprised how much I had to do to get a Cert IV in T&A, despite having just completed a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education. Don’t tell me university and vocational teaching are completely different: they aren’t.
The VET system separates course design from delivery. This can be frustrating for an industry expert, who has to stick to prepared materials. But then this can also be a problem at universities.
Thanks for the comments, Tom. The current rules allow for an industry expert fresh to the system to serve as a teacher alongside or under supervision of fully qualified ones. That could certainly be a pathway into the profession. Good point about the relevance of other types of teacher preparation. One thing the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment does that other kinds of preparation don’t is give the student insight into the complexities of the competency-based system. Apart from that, the challenges of effective teaching are very similar from sector to sector. I really appreciate the point about separation of design from delivery in VET. I would say that’s the chief difficulty in the transition since the design can be quite foreign to the experience of people in industry.
This is an important discussion about ensuring quality and expertise in VET education. The next steps you outline sound promising for strengthening the sector.
Thanks Stanley. Let’s hope that the erosion of trust in VET teachers that came with the introduction of ‘competency-based training’ can be overcome so that the true value of teachers in this sector can be appreciated and leveraged for the good of students and industry.