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Emerging partnership practices in VET provision in the senior years of schooling in Australia

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Abstract

School partnerships support the effective provision of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in the senior years of secondary schooling, to a varying degree, in most OECD nations. However, the nature and quality of these partnerships vary considerably from school to school and, indeed, from nation to nation (see Murray and Polesel, Eur J Educ 48(2):233–246, 2013). Given the role of these partnerships in VET provision in the senior years of schooling, it might be argued that there has been limited discussion about the role and nature of these relationships and the challenges associated with their establishment and long-term sustainability, especially in the Australian context (Allison et al. Building learning communities: partnerships, social capital and VET performance. NCVER, Adelaide, 2006). This paper explores the emergence of partnerships in a variety of educational and training contexts in Australia and describes the types of partnerships that have been established to respond to the specific needs of students. It also identifies the benefits and challenges associated with the delivery of VET programs through partnerships and the ways in which these partnerships can be developed and sustained to improve VET provision.

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Notes

  1. The Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) is an accredited secondary certificate for students in years 11 and 12 in Victoria, Australia. It is a practical education stream, where students may work in a trade or part-time job on some days of the week and supplement this by doing a set course at school.

  2. The FLOs are designed for students disengaged from school. Each student has a qualified case manager assigned, and an individual learning portfolio used to study in a community space or a school site.

  3. The Australian Government has invested nearly $1.4 billion from 2008 to 2016, through the Trade Training Centres in Schools Program to enable secondary school students to have access to modern trade training facilities. Eligible schools access funding to build new or upgrade existing trade or vocational education and training facilities, and to equip those facilities with industry standard equipment (Australian Government 2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Vocational and Educational Policy, The University of Melbourne, 100 Leicester St, Carlton, Australia

    Gosia Klatt & John Polesel

  2. Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, 100 Leicester St, Carlton, Australia

    Teresa Angelico

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  1. Gosia Klatt
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  2. Teresa Angelico
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  3. John Polesel
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Correspondence to Gosia Klatt.

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Klatt, G., Angelico, T. & Polesel, J. Emerging partnership practices in VET provision in the senior years of schooling in Australia. Aust. Educ. Res. 45, 217–236 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-017-0244-9

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