VET News

This is What We Heard

Results from the National Skills Commission (NSC) co-design consultations have been published.  The establishment of the NSC was announced by the Government as part of the $585 million Skills Package – delivering skills for today and tomorrow. The Skills Package lays the building blocks for improvements identified in the Expert review of Australia's vocational education and training system (the Joyce Review).

Informed by the Joyce Review, the consultation approach focused on identifying how the NSC can best deliver value to the VET sector.  Three key questions were used to structure all consultations and submissions:  

• What are the roles and responsibilities of the NSC?  
• What organisational capabilities will the NSC need?  
• What governance is needed to give the NSC the legitimacy and support it needs?

In terms of the functions the NSC should undertake, the most commonly discussed were to:

• be the centralised ‘source of truth’ for the VET sector including VET data, information and skills forecasting
• develop an approach for VET that balances local demand with consistency in pricing
• improve quality within the VET sector by setting national standards for RTOs, training products (including content), apprenticeships and a workforce that sees quality as something beyond compliance
• monitor sector performance and effectiveness
• offer a strategic approach to industry engagement
• promote the VET sector including by means of creating parity  in the public perception between higher education and VET
• provide a leadership role in the training product development process.

Across all consultations, the organisational capabilities to deliver on the purpose, roles and responsibilities identified above were most commonly identified as: leadership, data analysis, research and stakeholder engagement.

Thoughts on governance and next steps have also been captured in the report.

For more information, you can view the:

• NSC outcomes paper
• Delivering skills for Today and Tomorrow webpage
• Joyce Review

Date posted May 14, 2020