Context of Workplace Education and Training - Research Paper Example

Context of Workplace Education and Training The advent of globalization and free trade has revolutionized industries all over the world. The massiveintegration of economies creating one large marketplace necessarily results in intense competition between and among countries and between a country’s workforce with the workforces of all other countries. As capital financiers gained the freedom to freely move their investment anywhere they choose to find the lowest labor costs and highest returns, many workforces were edged out while some others unexpectedly took the upper hand. Governments were forced to restructure, augment and reshape their economic and labor strategies as investors turned more and more to underdeveloped countries to bring their capital where labor is less costly. The Australian government was compelled to grapple with these new realities as unemployment rate rose from 1.6% in 1970 and peaked at 10.1% in 1992. The workforce had to be retrained to be more competitive. It was in this context that Australia adopted and implemented the Vocational Training and Education system. VET is a system of education incorporated into school curricula and workplace trainings that aims at preparing the student or the worker with the necessary competency that will hone them into competent members of the workforce able to compete in the global arena. The Australian VET is characterized by its nationally unified system, Competency-Based Training (CBT) and Work-Based Learning (WBL). Globalization, the VET and other related concerns have impacted even on established Australian industries like Travelex. Travelex: Education and Training Program Travelex is one of the world’s biggest foreign exchange companies. It was founded by Lloyd Dorfman of London in1976 which initially made a breakthrough into the airport scene in 1986 in Heathrow Airport, an arena used to be monopolized by clearing banks. In 1989, it set up foreign exchange units in Australian airports under permission from the Ansett Airlines, operator of the Australian airport terminal. Today, the company operates in 93 airports around the world, has presence in about 30 countries in the world and employs about 6000 people. Australia is its third biggest market (History of Travelex). The Travelex business has three divisions. The Global Business Payments division accepts commercial and personal clients’ requests to service payments in almost all parts of the globe in their preferred currencies. The Retail Division, the largest in the world, which has 700 branches all over the world, sells banknotes and foreign exchange in most currencies in airports and seaports. The Outsourcing division, on the other hand, deals with institutions and travel agencies who may need foreign currencies, a service which this division could easily give (Travelex Group Information). All these services are also available in the Australian branch. As a Training Coordinator for Travelex Australia, the job entails supervising induction programs for trainees who are being given job orientation and training that will enhance their competence for their jobs with the company. This is applicable to applicants who have been passed and are considered for certain company positions. The on-the-job training integrates the new applicants with the new people of the company. The basics of foreign exchange are tackled, a first for the new applicants and again for the new people. For the new applicants the aim is to introduce and familiarize them with the subject and for the new people to enhance and strengthen their knowledge. Initially, the training on the first week involves mainly question and answers where the applicants are given opportunity and freedom to ask everything they want about the company and its line of business. Thereafter mock selling of foreign currencies are conducted where the applicants are made to take on the roles of either the buyer or the seller of these currencies. The role playing are aimed at enhancing the abilities of the applicants to think quickly and on-the-spot as well as put into practice what they actually learned about the business from the previous weeks. The applicants are also trained how to react appropriately in the event of robberies and familiarize them with online security. The induction training culminates into actual on-the-job training as the new applicants are taken to the actual worksites and are made to do actual foreign exchange selling with real customers. At this stage, all the knowledge learned by the applicants in the induction and mock-sales are put into application. The next responsibility of the Training Coordinator is to further follow-up on the new applicants is to keep a track of their sales record and if they are applying correctly what they have learned during the induction period into their jobs. From these records, and through ocular observations of the new trainees in the workplace, recommendation and reports are then made as to the areas that each of these new trainees are deficient and need to polish up on. This phase of the training goes on for three months, after which the now new sales consultants are convened with on a one-on-one basis and are each given a checklist plan which showcase in detail the areas they need to strengthen and develop their competence more. The training however does not end here because every three months, the new trainees are then called again for another round of assessment. The adult education are conducted in a similar manner although in an atmosphere that is an admixture of fun and simplicity where games related to the jobs are introduced to get the adults’ minds going and participating. As part of an industry that is governed by a unified national system of VET, Travelex Australia has to contend with the fact that it has to conform to Industry Training Advisory Bodies’ developed competency standards approved by the National Training Framework Committee. The training being given to Travelex’ applicants are ironically not specifically to make these applicants competent with the jobs they applied for with Travelex but more importantly, for the sake of accreditation, make them competent in accordance to the standards set by the government for this particular industry. In implementing its induction and employee training Travelex has to contend with many issues particularly meeting the standards set by the VET. The VET and the FOREX Industry: Recent Developments and Changes Since the 1980s’ reform movement of the vocational education, there was a resulting reduction and streamlining of curriculum development and implementation. Aside from the adoption of a national standard, a regulated accreditation framework as well as assessment practice was implemented. In specific terms, the traditional criterion-based approach was reduced from a multiple level of fail, pass, credit, and distinction to simply competent and incompetent. Moreover, there is an emerging highly particularized curriculum arrangement (Billet 2006 pp 31-48). It was also in the late 1980s that the government seriously considered integrating the CBT approach to the VET of the country, a strategy that followed a bi-partite convention and debate between the country’s employers and unions. The meeting itself was precipitated by the seeming declining economic status and the need to upgrade the country’s workforce in general after a several negative assessments of Australia’s education and training were published. Particularly considered as the cause of the industry failure was the underpinning doctrine of the conventional practice in which the focus of vocational education and training was the market and the private good overriding the common good, a doctrine earlier adopted by a Federal Labor government. A bi-partite study tour was conducted overseas to get a detailed view of the prevailing labor and industry condition outside of the country so as to be able to come up with the corresponding solutions that will make the local workforce up to par globally. The subsequent report and corresponding recommendations were contained in the publication Australia Reconstructed. The said publication became the basis of many reforms in the industry, reforms which were supported by succeeding governments from both sides of the politics (Billet 2006 pp 31-48). Among the many reforms subsequently instituted had to do with workplace practices and the preparation and the assessment of skilled workers. It also made vocational education submissive to industrial relations reforms which implies that any reform in the vocational education must comply and align with those of the former. The main recommended method of instituting vocational education was CBT because it was deemed the most effective way of redressing the deficiencies in the vocational education curriculum and in 1989, the government decided to implement a CBT approach nationwide, believing that the best way to develop a skilled workforce is through a “centrally-controlled and industry-mandated nationally uniform provision of VET.” The advantages that CBT offered was that it could do the following: “ (i) quantify exactly what skills the industry need, (ii) address problems associated with time-serving vocational education and training arrangements (particularly those associated with entry-level training) and, (iii) permit the organisation and administration of vocational education to be closely linked to industry needs and, in particular, the reform of work practices referred to at the time as Award Restructuring (qtd. Billet 2006 pp 31-48). A CBT approach to vocational training is one that stresses on what a person can do in the workplace after completion of the training program. A person’s skill is assessed not on the basis of how he fares with his colleagues but against a standard and pre-prepared checklist of competencies determined by the appropriate government agency for a specific sector of the industry. These industry-determined competencies are meant to draw out the skills, knowledge and attitudes of the trainee that will make him or her effective and suited to the job in the workplace. Competency standards can be broken down to competency units, and the latter into elements of competency. In addition, performance criteria, a range of variables and an evidence guide are also included in the unified program. The competency standards however are only mere components of the training package (Competency-Based Training 2008). The formula used under the CBT approach is, skills required – current skills = skills gap, which means that the assessment takes into account what skills does a trainee brought into the workplace and measuring such skills against the unified competency standards developed for the industry by the appropriate agencies as defined in the Training Package. Any negative difference between the current skills and the skills required which does not favor the latter is called the skills gap, a gap which will then be the basis of a further training program specifically for that trainee for the purpose of eliminating the said gap. For learners with no current skills, a full curriculum is implemented such as the case of new applicants in the Travelex case. For those who have been with the company for a longer period and who have already acquired skills for the job but have not fully complied fully with the required skills as defined in the Training Package, a leaner training program is developed for their particular likewise in accordance with the Training Package. Such is the case of Travelex employees who have been with the company but who upon assessment, are found to have skills gap to a certain extent and are given separate training geared to make up for such deficiencies. Another development in VET which vocational schools and providers must be familiar with is the so-called Training Packages. A Training Package is an assessment and recognition tool of skills in a particular industry, industry sector or enterprise. It contains a description of the skills and knowledge that a worker must have in order to be assessed as competent in a specific industry. It does not provide guidance on how a particular training must proceed but rather what the end of the training must result in. Specifically, a training package consists of endorsed components and support materials. Endorsed components include competency standards which define the skills and knowledge which workers must possess in a particular industry or sector, qualifications like diplomas or certificates, assessment guidelines as the term implies define the assessment procedure that should be conducted to determine competence of workers and trainees. Support materials, on the other hand, can include “assessment materials, learning strategies and professional development materials, to support leaning and assessment. “ In the event these are not included in the package, providers can instead use those that have been developed previously by training authorities and other providers (The VET Sector 2008). Although the implementation of Training Packages may vary from place to place, there are however fixed implementation guidelines that should nevertheless be followed. These guidelines set out the following: “qualifications included in the training package; registration processes and requirements for training organizations; how to correlate course information from older accredited sources or earlier versions of the training package with the latest endorsed qualifications (sometimes called mapping); timelines for transferring students from old qualifications to new ones (sometimes called transitioning); sample training programs; industry licensing requirements; contact and resources, and; apprenticeships and/or traineeships that include competencies or qualifications from the training package” (The VET Sector). A relevant example of a Training Package is SIR07 which is a Retail Services Training Package. This package has been endorsed in 2007 by the National Quality Council (NQC), an agency established in 2005 to take over the functions of the now defunct National Training Quality Council (NTQC). It was approved by the Minister in 2007, and covers eleven qualifications and more than 250 units of competency, including, among others, “employability skills summaries for each qualification; a range of cross-industry units of competency and qualifications to enhance the portability of skills across the retail, wholesale and community pharmacy sectors; sector-units of competency to develop the technical skills particular top each of the retail, wholesale and community pharmacy sectors; updated qualifications and units of competency to meet the requirements of legislation, new technologies and emerging industry areas; expanded unit of competency detail to provide additional information for users of the training package” (Retail, Wholesale and Community Training Pharmacy Training Packages 2008). Another Training Package example is BSBO7 or the Business Services Training Package which applies to the six key sectors of the business industry: business services; cultural industries; education; financial services; information and communication technologies (ICT), and; printing. This package was introduced sometime in 2004 at the behest of the Department of education, Science, and Training as revolutionary changes all over the world emerged in the field of advancing technologies especially in the field of e-business, globalisation, enterprise redesign as well as demographic changes. Thus, the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) created the Business Industry Skills to determine, together with the industry and the government, the changes that must be made in order to meet better the new challenges brought about by the revolution in the advancing technologies. The consensus was that there was a need to augment skills formation of the workers in the field of innovation, business acumen, financial literacy, IT literacy, small business, employability skills, occupational health and safety and workforce development. Thus, was born Training Package BSBO7 (BSBO7: Business Services Training Package 2008). Workplace Issues and Recent VET Changes. Perhaps because the Training Packages for the industry sector to which Travelex belongs is a broad one as it applies to several industry sectors at once, some courses and outcomes are therefore seemingly not applicable directly to the Travelex workplace. This is understandable considering that that Training Package BSBO7, for example, does not deal alone with the financial sector but a broad range of other areas like cultural services or education. Training Package SIR07, on the other hand, does not deal with retail alone but shares the curriculum with industry sectors like community pharmacy, among others. Another concern is that there is a need that Training Packages and the implementation of the CBT in the training room and workplace needs a teacher or trainer whose knowledge about the subject is current and updated and can impart the kind of knowledge that is applicable and workable in workplaces. The reason why there is doubt in this area is that the training curriculum does not necessarily confine itself to knowledge that is internal to the workplace but shifts outside of it. Even though most of the curriculum calls for individual pacing, still the trainer’s guidance is vital to the program. As it is, the present CBT approach calls for a minimal participation of the trainer in the shaping of the trainee into a skilled worker and has reduced his or her participation to a mere instructor who monitors and assesses their development. The trainer’s role is explicit and therefore limited and does not require the exercise of professional judgment and really connecting on a more intimate basis with the trainees. The downside in this kind of approach is that trainers are unable to coach and develop the trainees on other things, like how to develop their capacity to gain knowledge out of their jobs, aside from being able to function competently in accordance with their job descriptions. Since the CBT approach has a mere two-level system of assessment, that is competent and incompetent, the more intelligent and quicker learners will lack motivation to strive above the level of competence since the latter mark is considered adequate under the VET system. In addition, because the CBT approach is largely a behaviorist approach, skills that are not immediately observed like common sense are not highlighted and therefore neglected in their development. The CBT approach therefore tends to ‘robotize’ workers, as the only concern that they must consider is being able to function as a competent in accordance with the requirement of the job, a quality that is merely routine and does not require the use complex thinking. As can be seen, globalization, free trade and the revolution posed by technological advances require the Australian workforce to step up and be competitive. The rise of emerging economies like China and India poses very stiff competition to advanced nations like Australia. It is therefore understandable why the Australian government would resort to a revolutionary system of transforming its workforce to enable them to pit skills with any workforce in the world through a unified national competency standard implemented primarily through CBT. However, all systems have flaws in them and nothing is perfect. Nevertheless, the government must also consider that a curriculum that emphasizes only the routine and neglects the development of the other aspects of a worker’s abilities may eventually make him a liability. References (2008). Competency Based Training. Icvet.tafensw. http://www.icvet.tafensw.edu.au/resources/competency_based.htm (2008). Retail, Wholesale and Community Training Pharmacy Training Packages. ServiceSkillsAustralia. http://www.serviceskills.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=461&Itemid=947 (2008).The Vet Sector. Service Skills Victoria. http://www.ssv.org.au//vet_training.php#what_are BSBO7: Business Services Training Package. NTIS. http://www.ntis.gov.au/Default.aspx?/trainingpackage/BSB07 History of Travelex. http://www.forex-guide.net/history-of-travelex.html Stephen Billett. Constituting the workplace curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies. Vol. 38, Issue 1, Feb 2006, pp 31-48. Travelex Group Information. Travelex.co. http://www.travelex.co.uk/group/default.asp?lang=ENG Read More