This study tour of leading European Union (EU) VET providers
and partners enabled me to examine how complimentary partnerships with
businesses could contribute to best practice and enhance the strengths of TAFE
NSW.
I chose destinations to examine best practice examples in
partnerships in different contexts of VET.
·
A tour of Finland to observe the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s #1 ranked country for
education.
·
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.
·
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)
My tour addressed these key issues:
1. How
relationships can be formed with complimentary organisations to expand training
options for students
2. How the
needs of stakeholders are balanced to ensure sustainable relationships
3. How
review and consultative practices contribute to effective quality assurance and
continual processes of improvement
4. How
collaborative tools and techniques can be used to manage communication where stakeholders
are spread across geography, language and time zones.
Study tour methodology
Planning my study tour involved stages of research, requests
for support, referrals for visits and preparation of interview questions. The
formal stages of this process were successful but it’s interesting to note
that, in a world of systems and social media tools, personal communication
supported through personal referral from friends was the most successful
method.
I prepared a set of draft interview questions that were
themed to align to my study tour rationale and the assumptions I had made. I
customised the questions based on the type of organisation and country before
emailing them prior to my interviews.
I followed simple steps with all of my interviews:
1. I sent them a copy of the interview themes and draft questions so they could think ahead about my interview. I also reassured them that the interview would be informal and that the questions would guide our conversation and not be used individually
2. I conducted the interviews in as informal and natural a conversation as possible. I talked with them about who I am and why I had come to visit world leaders in education, I usually asked them about themselves and what role they played, I then tried to use some of the points that they raised to introduce the themes of my questions.
I would also ask them if they could introduce me to anyone else they thought would be helpful to my study tour. I tried to capture my notes from the interviews ASAP into my blog, this resulted in fast feedback and an opportunity to fine-tune as time became available.
3. In my third step(s) I email them to thank them for their time, ask them if they have any further points they’d like to add, ask them if they would like to know more about the Australian VET sector and ask them if they would like to browse through some of our teaching resources from our Moodle Learning Management System (LMS).
Finland
Finland ranks as #1 in OECD education rankings with an
education system that is widely quoted as student centred and grounded in
communities.
My visits with staff from Helsinki Business College, Luovi
and the Finnish National Board of Education allowed me to observe
characteristics of their education system that I believe contribute to their
high world ranking:
·
Culturally the Finns are very focused on social/civic
partnerships which they see as a collaboration between the essential parts of
their community in supporting their students in their learning. Stakeholders
included industry groups, businesses, business chambers, trade unions,
community groups, schools, universities and VET educators.
·
I noted in my blog that common words and phrases
kept appearing in my interviews: We,
citizenship, respect, consultation, trust, entrepreneurial thinking, holistic, partner,
well-being and student. Culturally the Finns appear to be very community minded
and focused on holistic practices rather than atomistic detail.
·
The culture of students learning through life
experiences appears to prepare students to be independent and versatile, which
can be observed from a very early age. Finnish children appear to learn through
play and excursions. Everywhere I went I saw children from five years and older
on public transport with their teachers on excursions. This included wet and
even snowy days!
·
Teachers are regarded as highly respected
professionals. “We trust and respect our
teachers”. Teaching appears to be a highly desired and respected career
choice.
·
Libraries are well utilised and socially valued.
I visited two different libraries (Vallinin community library and the Helsinki
University library) and both had far more people than what I would typically
observe in Australia. Helsinki Business College students undertake projects in
the community library where they provide a help desk service to the community
and elderly in particular on how to use their mobile phones and basic PC
troubleshooting.
·
Work placement is a mandatory part of VET
courses but can be conducted in different delivery patterns ranging from block
release through to students being embedded within the business for their entire
course. The delivery pattern is based on business and student needs rather than
being driven by course or college processes.
·
In many cases the colleges are owned by either
the business chamber or the local government entity. Federal government
provides the finances but the colleges are owned and operated by their own
communities.
·
Assessment must take part in the workplace and
final grades are based on a three-way consultation between employers, students
and teachers. Consultation meetings typically take 1-2 hours with a detailed
discussion of the student’s performance in the job and time to reach a
consensus on how the average of their rankings will be recorded as a mark. This
approach appears to embed a culture of consultation between colleges and
businesses.
·
Courses are typically comprised of 5-8 subjects
compared to the 17+ units of competence that are common in Australian VET
qualifications, which appears to minimise the administrative overhead in
managing assessment.
·
The Finns were very interested in Australian
education, they were particularly impressed with two programs from Riverina
Institute: “Talking
Tech”[1]
and the “IT Pathway”[2]
program with Charles Sturt University.
They were also interested but also somewhat puzzled by the processes
surrounding assessment development and validation. The Finnish culture
surrounding education is not as administratively focused as Australia, after
some debate on one visit a teacher said to me “there is more to life than
skills, knowledge, rules and processes.”
·
They have a strong commitment to exchange
programs, every person I met with had heard of the Erasmus+ exchange program
and knew of at least one person who has been involved.
·
Quality control is not audit based but is
continuous and reflective, there is no sense of blame or stress, “if it is not
right we will do better next time”.
·
Most students spend an average of five years in
VET and/or university, “students need
time to learn”. Most students aren't expected to be employed fulltime till
about 25 years of age.
·
My visits didn’t reveal any distance education
practices as colleges are formed to meet local needs as opposed to national or
state needs. We did discuss that some colleges in remote areas were operated in
partnership with Helsinki based colleges.
In Finland relationships are formed with complimentary
organisations through a cultural tradition of community partnerships. The needs
of stakeholders are balanced through regular contact in assessment meetings to
ensure sustainable relationships that directly relate to student outcomes.
Quality assurance and continual processes of improvement are managed through a
blame free process of review that is based on open meetings with stakeholders
led by the Finnish National Board of Education. Based on my interviews I
suspect that the Erasmus+ exchange program is the most successful tool to
foster collaboration across time zones and national borders.
Finland is an incredibly impressive country with a culture
and mix of practices that is working exceptionally well for them. In my opinion
their practices around community partnerships and workplace assessment could be
adapted into an Australian context. They have a culture of community
consultation and engagement in education that is not just focused on skills and
knowledge, they see the students holistically in terms of being prepared to be
productive work ready citizens. Assessment is consultative, which not only
produces marks for subjects but fosters a relationship between colleges,
teachers and business leaders. These relationships with regular contact become
an opportunity to ensure that colleges are providing the courses and
employability skills that are essential to a healthy economy.
Taking part in further exchange programs would assist
Australia to continue to exchange best practices from each country.
Austria
Austria is famous for having one of the highest rates of
workplace training in the world. It has a strong economy based on high tech
manufacturing. The VET system is grounded in industry with mandatory business
chamber membership enabling strong industry leadership into colleges.
To gain a wide range of views I conducted interviews with a
University of Applied Science, two VET colleges, the Vorarlberg Business
Chamber and the Ministry of Education. My visits allowed me to observe
characteristics of their education system that I believe contribute to their
economic success and fame as a world leader in workplace learning:
Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKO) in Vorarlberg
WKO represents the interests of Austrian companies.
Membership is mandatory for all Austrian businesses under Austrian law, with
over 450,000 members. The WKO has very strong relationships and communication
with its business members and runs regular events locally or with partners for
local businesses and educators.
WKO provides funding that is matched dollar for dollar by
the government directly into colleges.
TGM Die Schule der Technic
TGM offers courses in Engineering, IT, Biomedical and Health
Sciences.
Students typically take on a five year course where the
first three years are spent on core subjects and then specialist subjects are
completed in years four and five. The student’s final year is based on a major
project that has to be undertaken in industry. The final project is not
standardised but based on criteria that is fairly general that allows the
teacher to make a judgement.
Institut für IT Sicherheitsforschung, Department Informatik und Security.
The St. Pölten UAS LLC is locally anchored, globally
connected and stands for qualitative academic education in the departments of
Rail Technology and Mobility, Health Sciences, Computer Science and Security,
Media and Digital Technologies, Media and Economics and Social Sciences. The
linking of issues in teaching and researching creates room for interdisciplinary
scientific findings, products and solutions for the economy and society. About
2600 students receive a practice-oriented academic education in 17 study
programs and numerous continuing education courses.
Read more: https://www.fhstp.ac.at/en/about-us
FH Vorarlberg
Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences (FH Vorarlberg)
offers degree (degree and masters level) programs in business administration,
engineering and technology, design and social work.
FH Vorarlberg is one of the most research-intensive
universities of applied sciences in Austria. The majority of research and
development projects are undertaken in collaboration with regional businesses
and organisations working at an international level. The direct link between
research and studies exposes students to current research issues early on. At
FH Vorarlberg, scientists and students work in the fields of process and
product engineering, microtechnology, user-centred technologies, social and
economic sciences and energy.
Austria Summary
Austria has an amazingly successful manufacturing sector
that has been built on workplace training and a collaborative approach between
industry and educational providers.
Australia could learn from their consultative processes with
business chambers as well as their model for work placements and assessments.
Discussion points
·
Austria and in particular Vorarlberg state has a
strong history of educational and industrial development and is famous for high
tech manufacturing.
·
CEOs often come from a trade background and have
risen up through their business ranks to lead their companies. CEOs have a lot
of influence in politics and this extends back into feedback to the educational
system.
·
Sustainability is important to Austrians with
100 percent sustainable power, mainly from Hydroelectric.
·
STEM (science, technology, engineering and
maths) is as big an issue here as it is in Australia. They are very concerned
about attracting enough technical employees.
·
They have low enrolments of women in tech
fields, approximately 5-10 percent. They have trialled lots of different plans
to attract and support women into technical jobs.
·
Feedback is managed through a standardised
survey model that collects feedback at every level of the process. This ensure
that all levels are aware of the views of other stakeholders. Feedback is
recorded in a highly standardised way so it can be analysed in detail.
·
Work placements
o
Recruitment for workplace students occurs on a
common date for all companies.
o
Approximately 80-90 percent stay with the
company after the work placement.
o
Companies have to complete a survey after each
work placement. They are basically happy with the VET system but the
satisfaction data is slowly dropping every year. Technology based subjects are
complex and it is hard for schools to maintain their standards. “The curriculum is getting fuller with less
time for technical subjects”.
o
WFO keeps pushing that maths and tech subjects
are important and needed to maintain standards.
o
In the large colleges that I visited there
appeared to be enough local work placement opportunities to meet demand. It
would be interesting to investigate what happens in more remote colleges where
industry is not as prevalent.
·
Assessment for workplace students
o
Some companies feel there is too much paperwork
especially since EU. Work placement commences with one contract with sign-off
by all parties.
·
Globalisation is real and current in education.
Most of the Austrian colleges were using the same Cisco Networking Academy
teaching resources and hardware that we use in the IT department at Riverina
Institute. The Cisco Networking Academy is a great example of a global
partnership model for education.
In Austria relationships are formed with complimentary
organisations through a tradition of workplace training where all VET students
must do a work placement that is relevant to their course. The needs of stakeholders
are balanced through regular contact in setting up work placements to ensure
sustainable relationships that directly relate to industry needs and student
outcomes. Quality assurance and continual processes of improvement are managed
through a mandatory survey process that collects feedback from all stakeholders
including students, businesses, teachers and educational leaders. Based on my
interviews I suspect that the Austrian business chamber fosters collaboration
within Austria.
Tasmania
The final stage of my study tour was a visit to the TASTAFE
ICT teaching department in Hobart. They are a very progressive department with
a good choice of courses that are obviously setting their students up well for
jobs with, like Riverina Institute, students being "head hunted" into
jobs before they can even finish their courses!
They are running an excellent cross section of courses with
a mix of generalist and networking specialist courses. The only different
courses from Riverina Institute are based around Systems Technology and Support
which they have chosen to meet local business needs. Read more: http://www.tastafe.tas.edu.au/courses/industry/business-and-ict/
·
joint program with their electrotechnology
department.
·
learning hands on skills with tools as well as
IT and telecommunications skills.
·
concerns about the future viability of
Certificate II courses aimed at digital literacy, as these courses in IT don't
really have a job outcome.
·
like RI they are using a range of eLearning techniques
and tools.
·
discussed the role of TASICT and what they have
achieved for the Tasmanian IT industry. http://www.tasict.com/about/
·
we discussed a range of future collaborations
for our two departments: assessment validations, resource sharing, comparing
delivery models.
Systems for collaboration
The European Union has established several online systems as
well as the Cedefop to foster collaboration in VET education across Europe.
Cedefop
Cedefop works to strengthen European cooperation and provide
the evidence on which to base European VET policy. Cedefop’s added value is the
high quality of its comparative analyses and expertise gathered through
research and networking.
Cedefop works closely with the European Commission, Member
States’ governments, representatives of employers and trade unions, VET
researchers and practitioners. It provides them with up-to-date information on
developments in VET as well as opportunities for policy debate.
Cedefop disseminates its information through its website,
publications, social media, networks, conferences and seminars.
Despite many attempts I couldn't book a site meeting with
Cedefop so had to settle on an online analysis based on their extensive website
and Facebook page.
Most teachers have heard about Cedefop but are not that
aware of the work that they do. I suspect, but need to investigate further,
that Cedefop is operating at a much more strategic level focused on European
standards and policy rather than at an operational teacher’s level.
EPALE
“EPALE is a multilingual open membership community for
teachers, trainers, researchers, academics, policy makers and anyone else with
a professional role in adult learning across Europe.
EPALE is funded by the European Commission, as the latest
development in an ongoing commitment to improving the quality of adult learning
provision in Europe. It is set up around the sharing of content related to
adult learning, including news, blog posts, resources, and events and courses.
Members of the community can engage with adult learning
colleagues across Europe through the site’s features, including the forums and
by commenting under blogs.”
Most teachers that I met had not heard about the ePALE (is
it EPALE or ePALE and what does it stand for?) system yet it is full of great
articles and ideas. I suspect but need to investigate further that the system
is mainly being used by managers and support staff to promote change in
education and that teachers hear about the ideas through their support leaders.
Erasmus+
Erasmus+ is the EU's program to support education, training,
youth and sport in Europe and provides opportunities for over four million
Europeans to study, train, gain experience and volunteer abroad. The aim of
Erasmus+ is to contribute to the Europe 2020 strategy for growth, jobs, social
equity and inclusion. Erasmus+ also aims to promote the sustainable development
of its partners in the field of higher education, and contribute to achieving
the objectives of the EU Youth Strategy.
Almost every teacher has heard of the Erasmus+ program and
knows of examples where teachers and students have taken part in the exchange
program.
Systems for collaboration conclusion
Collaborative systems, tools and techniques are obviously
essential in supporting communication with stakeholders who are spread across
geography, language and time zones BUT I think it’s important to note that they
are most successful where there is some personal contact to establish a
relationship.
Study tour conclusions
Study tours and exchange programs are a brilliant
opportunity to open your eyes and see the strengths and weaknesses of your own,
as well as other, countries. This provides an opportunity to focus on positive
steps to move forward. I am exceptionally grateful for this opportunity and hope
that my research and recommendations can help other educators.
Australia already has excellent teaching practices and many
great initiatives we can share that I'm sure other countries would be happy to
learn from. These are examples of innovations from the IT department at
Riverina Institute. Our strengths create an opportunity for international
collaborations:
·
Project based learning
·
The IT Pathway program which is a fully
integrated partnership between TAFE and Charles Sturt University
·
ELearning models and templates to make it easier
for teachers to get online
·
Community consultation through Talking Tech
Riverina
·
Support Workshops with peer support models
The common lesson learnt from Finland and Austria is that
collaboration requires purpose! In a perfect world we would all work together
for purely altruistic reasons but in the “real” world most of us require a
sense of urgency to promote the desire
to work together to a necessity to
work together now.
Colleges, employers and community leaders need to communicate
and help each other when they share a common purpose of managing workplace
learning. Having worked together for their common purpose it is then easier to
extend those conversations around training needs for industry and community.
When teachers and community leaders become comfortable working together for a
common purpose they are also more likely to grow their networks through
introductions and referrals to “friends”.
My study tour to Europe has convinced me that workplace
learning brings very substantial benefits to both employers and colleges. The
Austrian experience and input from the business chamber forces me to conclude
that workplace learning also brings very substantial economic benefits at an
industry and national level.
In order to build complimentary partnerships with businesses
and by extension contribute to best practice and enhance the strengths of TAFE
NSW we need to promote workplace learning. Workplace learning then becomes the
mechanism to achieve our other goals:
·
Develop workplace assessments to encourage
workplace learning.
·
Develop community partnerships to promote and
support education.
·
Work with industry skills councils to ensure
that training packages encourage workplace learning
·
Promote the professional status of teaching as a
career.
The following recommendations provide specific detail on how
I believe these goals can be achieved.
Recommendations
·
Develop workplace assessments to promote
workplace learning.
o
Actively seek community projects where our
students can work within their communities.
o
Identify barriers and solutions to workplace
assessment.
o
Train and resource assessment experts who are
qualified and experienced in Training Services NSW and ASQA requirements.
o
Develop templates for workplace assessments that
define the evidence that needs to be collected and who needs to verify it.
o
Develop eLearning models and templates to
promote online evidence collection for workplace assessments.
o
Work with the employer to ensure that the
projects students complete are relevant to the workplace and prepare students
to be productive employees in the future.
·
Develop community partnerships to promote and
support education.
o
Promote a culture of social partnerships where
communities and education providers work together for the benefit of their
communities.
o
We need to broaden our definition of communities
and ensure we don't exclude people from their opportunity and responsibility to
contribute to education. Our definitions of community need to cover business
groups, town/regional governance, educators and cultural groups.
o
Practical steps include making more time to meet
with business chambers, shire councils, schools, libraries and community and
cultural groups.
·
Promote the professional status of teaching as a
career.
o
Continue to recruit and train great teachers BUT
then we must trust them and show respect for their time and judgement.
o
We need to make sure that our systems and
processes are no more complex or time consuming than absolutely necessary so
teachers have the time to commit to quality review and consultative work.
o
Promote international exchange programs for
overseas students and teachers to come to Australia. As a “safe” English
speaking country with a strong educational system, we would be very sought
after for international exchange students.
o
Develop collaborations with other VET providers
especially where we can develop partnerships rather than competitive
relationships.
