This report on VET Providers, Associate and Bachelor Degrees, and Disadvantaged Learners,1 is derived from research commissioned by the National VET Equity Advisory Council (NVEAC) and conducted by researchers at Deakin University and the... more
This report on VET Providers, Associate and Bachelor Degrees, and Disadvantaged Learners,1 is derived from research commissioned by the National VET Equity Advisory Council (NVEAC) and conducted by researchers at Deakin University and the University of Ballarat. It is particularly concerned with the impact for disadvantaged learners of associate and bachelor degrees offered by vocational education and training (VET) providers.
The Australian Government and its agency – the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) – registers VET providers that also offer higher education (HE), as other private providers (OPPs) of HE, irrespective of whether or not they are public providers of VET (i.e. established by state/territory governments). In contrast, this report identifies three categories of VET providers of HE: private, public and ‘partnered’. The third category involves a blurring of boundaries between public and private providers, as well as between VET and HE provision. One effect of this partnering is that student equity agendas are often diminished and sometimes absent altogether from the operations of VET-provider associate and bachelor degrees. The same can also be said of these degrees offered by public and private VET providers.
The Australian Government and its agency – the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) – registers VET providers that also offer higher education (HE), as other private providers (OPPs) of HE, irrespective of whether or not they are public providers of VET (i.e. established by state/territory governments). In contrast, this report identifies three categories of VET providers of HE: private, public and ‘partnered’. The third category involves a blurring of boundaries between public and private providers, as well as between VET and HE provision. One effect of this partnering is that student equity agendas are often diminished and sometimes absent altogether from the operations of VET-provider associate and bachelor degrees. The same can also be said of these degrees offered by public and private VET providers.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Among the many critiques of competency-based approaches to education and training (CBT) is a strain which draws on Foucault's analysis of 'disciplinary' power and knowledge. Foucault offered an interpretation of modern... more
Among the many critiques of competency-based approaches to education and training (CBT) is a strain which draws on Foucault's analysis of 'disciplinary' power and knowledge. Foucault offered an interpretation of modern institutions, such as prisons, armies and schools, which revealed subtle mechanisms of surveillance and systems of knowledge that shaped the self-understanding and activity of participants. Robinson (1993) and Edwards and Usher (1994) were among the first researchers to call attention to the disciplinary potential of CBT. But Foucault went on to argue that discipline is a component in an overarching system he called 'governmentality'. The analysis of governmentality augments the analysis of discipline by foregrounding the effects of knowledge of populations and modes of power that operate at a distance. In this article, the disciplinary critique of competency-based systems is extended by demonstrating the relevance of Foucault's analysis of gov...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Vocational education and training (VET) is an area of research dominated by positivist approaches. Such approaches complement the behaviourist educational philosophy known as 'competency-based training' (CBT) that underpins... more
Vocational education and training (VET) is an area of research dominated by positivist approaches. Such approaches complement the behaviourist educational philosophy known as 'competency-based training' (CBT) that underpins Australia's VET system. This paper reflects on a quandary encountered by researchers examining the history of competency-based education at a TAFE institution in South Australia. The issue was how to account for a series of mutations in the way CBT was understood and practised that subverted the largely unquestioned expectation of progress. The researchers found that Foucault's 'genealogical' approach allowed for the construction of a mode of intelligibility that lends the history a disturbing cogency. At the centre of this construction is an understanding of CBT as a highly permeable system whose configurability supports the reticulation of multiple forms of power.