Guest Author
Tony Palladino is Executive Officer at the NSW Utilities and Electrotechnology Industry Training Advisory Body (ITAB). He shares his thoughts on the review of the Australian Apprenticeship Incentive System.
The Australian government has launched a review into the Australian Apprenticeship Incentive System, with one of the main goals being to lift the dismal completion rates in vocational education and training (VET). According to the latest report from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), released in August 2023, fewer than half the students who undertake training package qualifications actually complete them.
But if we want to lift competition rates, we don’t need a review. The key issues are clear: supervision and mentoring, as well employer selection/recruitment systems and quality of school education.
And first and foremost, recognising the value of VET so that it isn’t seen as university’s poor cousin.
Valuing VET
When you have the federal education minister promoting questionable research suggesting that more than 55 per cent of the population will need a university degree to get a job in the future, you know the apprenticeship system is destined for destabilisation and atrophy.
Increasingly, if you can’t make it to university, then you’ll have to go elsewhere – like a trade – as a second-class option. This logic and symbolic statement – albeit yet to be verified by the minister – can only undermine future trade programs, and TAFE’s continual decline in quality (for a whole range of reasons) will further exacerbate that. Parents will be inclined to follow the minister’s lead and send their kids to uni, as that is the future. You can’t blame them.
I fear for the future of trades in Australia. Will we end up like other countries, where you can do a little off-the-job training up front, then only really learn about the trade once you’re working? In an economic upturn, you might be lucky enough to get decent on-the-job training. That’s much less likely in a downturn. Poor models lead to poorer quality outcomes.
Root problems
There is much discussion around wages and social support, but we never talk about the true causes of these issues.
No one wants to talk about the schooling system (the huge elephant in the room), the recruitment, the culture, and possible mechanisms needed to promote them. The regulators have turned a blind eye to employers who use apprentices for cheap labour.
How many prosecutions have there been across the country where the state training authorities have diligently, under their apprenticeship legislation, prosecuted employers or stopped them from exploitatively employing new or more apprentices? In NSW I can count them on one hand.
Review, rinse, repeat
Administrative personnel in federal and state governments with no trade background monitor apprenticeship training contracts and plans. At best they try hard, but they do not have the depth and breadth of understanding to stand up to an employer or stop the practices going on. Nothing gets done – only the administration of the documents.
Generic approaches fall apart time after time. Each time the apprenticeship system decays a little more. The answer? Let’s have an enquiry!
It’s another tick to show they are doing something. Then the minister leaves and the same cycle repeats about 10 years later. None of this helps the poor apprentice on the job.
A tertiary education commission?
I am not optimistic for the future of apprenticeships, unless there is drastic action to get those who know the system to run it. I’ll keep fighting the issues as I am passionately in favour of fixing the problems, but few others are willing to call the process out.
The accord proposes establishing a tertiary education commission that seeks to rope a self-accrediting TAFE into the mix, which will turn its primary attention to diploma-level programs and above. This proposed arrangement will only further destabilise parents’ understanding and support for trades as a worthy career option for their children.
The way forward
To enhance trades as a worthwhile career choice, we need national leadership. We need to establish an effective national apprenticeship commission that can bring sound policy to bear and promote the value of trades and respective qualifications.
This should be a commission that aims to influence employers, parents, industrial parties, and the VET system to heighten the quality and attractiveness of trades, as well as protecting apprentices and trainees from poor employment practices. Bureaucrats and ministers can launch as many inquiries as they like and add more money to incentives, but they won’t change the trajectory of trades without a commission.
A paper will not get the job done. But a focused industry campaign backed by both employers and unions to establish a fully autonomous and funded national apprenticeship commission will.
Leave a Reply