Rationale

This study tour of leading European Union (EU) VET providers and partners will enable me to examine how complementary partnerships with businesses contribute to best practice and enhance the strengths of TAFE NSW.
My tour will examine the role of leadership in establishing relationships with partner organisations.
My tour will address these key questions:

1. How can relationships be formed with complementary organisations to expand training options for students to “supports the skills development of the NSW workforce to meet the state's future demand for jobs” (Smart and Skilled, 2014)?
   
2. How are the needs of stakeholders balanced to ensure sustainable relationships? Understanding the needs of stakeholders enables TAFE NSW to “respond more rapidly to employer and customer needs, including access to information” (Let's Talk about TAFE, 2013)
   
3. How can review and consultative practices contribute to effective quality assurance and continual processes of improvement? Review and consultative practices enable TAFE NSW in “Sharing expertise and working collaboratively with business and industry will promote the ongoing currency and relevance of TAFE NSW capability” (TAFE NSW - Statement of Owner Expectations, 2013).
   
4. How can collaborative tools and techniques be used to manage communication where stakeholders are spread across geography, language and time zones?
   

I have chosen destinations to examine best practice examples in partnerships in different VET contexts.

•   A tour of Finland to observe their implementation of a dual university sector that is based around parallel options for academic or vocational qualifications. (OECD, 2014)
  
•   A tour of Austrian VET providers and their business partners. Austria is identified in OECD rankings and prior study tours as a world leader in workplace training. (OECD Education at a glance - Austria, 2014) (Duesterberg, 2014)
  
•   A visit to consult with the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) in Greece to observe how Cedefop leads policy development and collaboration in EU countries. (Cedefop - Mission, objective and priorities (2012-14), 2014).
  
•   A visit to TasTAFE to share the results of my tour and to discuss how lessons learnt can be applied to vocational education needs in both NSW and Tasmania. (TASTAFE, 2015)