Will be hopping and and out of the 30th NCVER 'no-frills' conference today and over the next two days. Notes taken from DAY 1 below.
Phil Loveder (NCVER) opens the conference. Simon Walker, Managing Director of the NCVER provides the offical welcome.
The conference's opening address is from the Ministerial Address from the Honorable Stuart Robert MP who is Minister of Employment, Workforce Skills, Small and Family Business. Focused on the Australian response to the pandemic and the initiatives undertaken to move forward beyond. As with NZ, large amount of $$ being put into increased training/apprenticeships etc. and increase of digital skills across workforce.
The first keynote is presented by Dr. Borhene Chakroun who is Director of Policies and Lifelong Learning at the Systems Division at UNESCO-HQ. His keynote concentrated on the challenges wrought by the pandemic and what needs to be done now, to support countries' recovery post-pandemic. TVET plays an important role in ensuring thw workforce. Challenges are not just due to the pandemic. Some recommendations include the need to ensure skills and competencies delivered by TVET must be aligned to the rapidly changing technologies, labour markets and skill needs. Demographic transitions require TVET to be lifelong learning focused. Online learning has great potentials but requires careful use. There is improved status of TVET. Also a need to leverage off the potentials provided by powerful data mining. analytics and integration of data to inform TVET. Stressed the importance of TVET as the world moves into an uncertain and challenging future.
Concurrent sessions begin. I attend the digital technology stream which begins with the session presented by Michael Belgica with Dr. Issariya Woraphipat & Piriya Boonphokai from the Siam Business Administration Techological College on the topic - Blending course content and design addressing the new normal teaching and learning carapace in the TVET industry. Began with an overview of the College facilities. Detailed the various synchronous and asynchronous approaches used last year. The centre uses a 'context specific' form of English language teaching to ensure student motivation. Detailed how the college shifted from mainly 'hands on learning' to 'online. Important to ensure the learning objectives are met - to prepare graduates for work/further studies - often preparing students for IELTs/TOFEL. Detailed their project - Innovative Learning for VE workforce transformation (ILVEWT), along with the framework of curriculum content, delivery and application to online teaching and learning.
Then, my session begins with the running of the pre-recorded session on 'digitally supported practice-based learning when authentic learning becomes available. A live chat Q & A is the only way to interact with the participants. An interesting experience.
My session focused on defining practice-based learning and how to best support this when authentic learning facilities, equipment, machinery etc. are not available due to closure of facilities. A very short summary of the concepts in the book - digitally enabling 'learning by doing'.
Managed to get to the last presentation with Professor Erica Smith from Federation University who presented on 30 years of VET teacher education. Overviewed the context of Australian VET teacher education. 30 years ago most were TAFE teachers. Cert IV introduced in 1998 as competency based training took hold. In 2019, 78.5% of TAFE workforce at Cert IV and numbers enrolled in university fallen significantly. Most other countries require or encourage degree qualifications in VET pedagogy, mostly whilst 'in-service' but sometimes 'up-front'. Other teachers in Australia require degree (early childhood, school, university). Recommended looking at Roger Harris's 2020 paper commissioned by NCVER - landmarks in the development of the VET workforce. Provided more details on each of the decades. 1990s was the 'heyday' of VET teacher quals. 2000s marked the beginning of the end for mandatory VET teacher-training. by 2010 there was lobbying to try to shift VET teacher education beyond the minimum Cert IV. 2020 turnaround in Victoria. Presented details on several of her studies on VET teachers, qualifications and quality between 2015 -2017. Argued for the importance of ensuring VET teachers have the right supports to help learners. Need to move from what is now the norm to a better valuing of teaching for VET.
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