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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3347 ..

MS MacDONALD (continuing):

renew efforts in promoting vocational education; affirms TAE's role-training and adult education-as the leader, facilitator and communicator in the VET sector; raises public awareness and positively influences community attitudes about the value and status of vocational education programs; contains identifiable outcomes and related performance measures; and, finally, is reviewed regularly to measure performance against stated outcomes.

I believe it is an incredibly important thing for TAE and the department as a whole to look at implementing a cohesive and co-ordinated strategy. If we don't have that-and I believe at the moment there are some areas where we fall short-we have a number of confused people trying to access vocational education and training.

We also heard that there was a need to focus on promoting the value and esteem VET more generally in the community, to vanquish the notion that VET is the second-best option or poor cousin of university education. Interestingly, one of the people who appeared before us said that university education is often referred to as higher education, so what does that make vocational education and training? If university education is the higher option, is VET therefore the lower option? The committee, quite conclusively, came to the opinion that VET is not the lesser option, it's just an alternative pathway.

We also heard that we need to give consideration to increasing the flexibility in funding allocations, particularly in relation to innovative VET projects which might not fall within any previously specified area. The committee also heard that the costs associated with meeting the Australian quality-training framework, or the AQTF, compliance is a significant impost on registered training organisations. That includes our secondary colleges here in the ACT. I know that this is a difficult issue to deal with.

Just this week we have had the Vocational Education and Training Bill go through, and I heartily endorse that. There is, however, a need to work out some way to make sure that we're not putting up barriers to registered training organisations putting the courses out there for our society, while still maintaining the quality of training that is actually delivered within the territory. I believe that some of this is being done, but we perhaps need to look at how we help the RTOs in meeting those requirements, as for the AQTF.

Also there were some issues, as I've talked about, about tenders. I won't go into this further, just that there needs to be more transparency and a more even-keeled or even-handed process needs to apply for those applying for tenders within the ACT within the VET sector. With regard to that, the issues that we heard about with relation to tenders within vocational education and training, are not limited just to the ACT. I think a number of these problems occur around the country.

We've named the report Pathways to the future. This should be a title that resonates with those people within vocational education and training. "Pathways"is a term often used. We used it because we believe VET has a very bright future and we also believe that it provides an incredibly bright future for those people who undertake a vocational education and training course. I believe-and I think the rest of the committee concurs with this belief-the report provides an excellent opportunity for those involved in administering vocational education and training, to make VET in the ACT as good as it can possibly be.

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