Page 3985 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 17 November 2015
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A national harmonisation strategy has been implemented to ensure that apprentices and trainees have their qualifications recognised in other states. To date 477 apprenticeship and traineeship qualifications have been harmonised, and another 253 are in the works.
This Friday I will be in Hobart to meet with my counterparts from across the country and with the commonwealth Minister for Vocational Education and Skills at a COAG Industry Skills Council. The discussions are expected to centre on ways of improving vocational education and training nationally and establishing mechanisms to improve quality and consistency whilst ensuring that the needs of students and employers are met at both national and local levels.
It is no secret that one of the keys to a strong apprenticeship system is a meaningful way of engaging with stakeholders. The most obvious of these stakeholders is the industry and employers, but we must also acknowledge the important role played by the registered training organisations, government, and our social partners. Our counterparts in Europe have known this for many years, and we often hold their vocational education and training systems as benchmarks.
To improve our engagement strategy here in the ACT we have created five field officer positions within the Education and Training Directorate. Their role is to engage with students and employers and to identify and resolve any issues early on to support increased apprenticeship completions.
The directorate has also been holding quarterly forums for the RTOs to keep them up-to-date with changes to the vocational education and training sector. I am also very proud of having provided professional development and additional training to the RTOs to ensure that they can deliver their programs efficiently and effectively to students from disadvantaged groups.
As I have mentioned before, 2015 has been a big year for vocational education and training here in the ACT. It is important to acknowledge that there has been some recent negative media attention nationally regarding the poor behaviour of unscrupulous training providers, and addressing these concerns is a key focus for the national VET sector and for all governments. Significant discussion on the range of activities underway to address these issues will occur at the COAG Industry Skills Council meeting this week.
It is important to remember that this behaviour is undertaken by only a small number of training providers, and I would like to acknowledge the fantastic efforts of the many quality training providers here in the ACT in training our workforce and acknowledge the ongoing improvements in the VET system in the ACT.
Apprentices and trainees make up a significant number of our students in vocational education and training, and our government has implemented a major renewal strategy for apprenticeships and traineeships in the ACT. We allocate approximately $13 million annually to the Australian apprenticeship, or user choice, funds, and currently fund around 5,229 apprentices and trainees. Because of the scope of this
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