Vocational Education

11 Pages 2741 Words

ed at around 600 nationally in both traineeships and apprenticeships with over half being undertaken in Queensland. In other States pilots are being used to gauge the market with reasonably strict controls on the number being offered. This is understandable given the range of uncertainties that still exist, particularly in terms of issues like duty of care, arranging contracts of training, payment for training particularly off the job and fitting school certificate requirements with training requirements.
New Apprenticeships in schools are a not unexpected outcome from the expansion of vocational education in schools. With over 60% of students exposed to some form of school-industry program (Ainley and Fleming, 1996), with consistently reported positive outcomes (Carbine and Cumming, 1997; Scharaskin, 1996) and with businesses beginning to both expand involvement in and promote the value of programs (Figgis, 1998), extension into more formal training arrangements probably comes as no great surprise. Added to this the first suggestions of students in pilot programs talking positively about the advantages of paid training (The Vetnetworker, 1998,p. ), attractive employer incentives and cost savings for industry from allowing schools to undertake elements of recognised training means greater uptake is more likely.

The range of models already developed under the pilot programs being run in different states reflects some of the essential principles underlying New Apprenticeships. In particular the notion of a negotiated training program that reflects the interests of the trainee as well as the requirements of the industry, the inherent capacity of Training Packages to reflect trainee and employer preferences and the involvement of regional and community interest groups account for the variations. However the influence of schools, TAFE and other training providers is certain to remain significant given that much of the initiative is still...