The early impacts of the Victorian VET reforms on enrolments and graduate outcomes

Description and objectives of the research

Reform of the vocational education and training (VET) sector is seen by the Australian government as a key part of policy efforts to meet the combined challenges of skills shortages, sluggish productivity growth and low rates of labour market participation. The same is true of the Victorian Government, with Victoria leading other states by being the first to move to a student demand-driven model for VET under the Victorian Training Guarantee (VTG), with provision of subsidised student places opened up to private providers in addition to public providers. Similar reforms are planned for South Australia (2012) and we can expect other states to follow in subsequent years.

Between July 2009 and January 2011 Victoria has incrementally moved to a new model where funding for subsidised places follows the student, with no overall cap, and where providers must compete to attract students and therefore funding. Taken together these reforms aim to boost participation in VET, make the sector more responsive to changing skill demands, and use enhanced competition among providers to drive increases in the quality of provision. However, it is unclear whether the reforms will have these desired effects. Empirical evidence on the impacts of these reforms is therefore important to support policy and practice.

 

Contact: The Melbourne Institute contact for this project is Dr Cain Polidano

Progress: This project commenced in June 2012 with a final report to be submitted to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) in June 2013.