National Training Framework and Vocational Education and Training Workplace - Term Paper Example

 National Training Framework and Vocational Education and Training (VET) Workplace Introduction Vocational teachers, for the most part--and certainly those who teach in trade, industrial, manufacturing and health occupations programs--did not (and do not today) have to follow the same teacher preparation or state certification rules as did other public school teachers. Throughout the 75-year history of federally supported vocational education, occupational teachers were employed primarily because they had years of extensive experience in a craft or profession--such as auto mechanic, cosmetologist, medical technician, carpenter, nurse, electrician or mason. When college degrees were deemed a minimal requirement for teachers in most states and in most subjects, vocational education was granted an exception. In effect, then, vocational and technical education always has had a nontraditional or alternative approach to preparing and certifying its teaching force. This is an approach that dates to 1917, promulgated by Charles Prosser, the first administrative director of the board, who believed that teachers' trade experience would correlate with student outcomes. Today, some vocational-technical educators subscribe to that philosophy, while others lean more toward John Dewey, who promoted a more general education to prepare teachers to help students ready themselves for a lifetime of learning and change. A way of approaching (vocational) training that places primary emphasis on what a person can do as a result of training (the outcome), and as such represents a shift away from an emphasis on the process involved in training (the inputs). It is concerned with training to industry specific standards rather than an individual's achievement relative to others in the group. (Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1992) The key points in most definitions are that the focus of training is on the outcome of the training, the outcome is measured against specified standards, not against other students; and the standards relate to industry (in the Australian context, the standards are normally the industry competency standards). Definitions tend to vary depending on whether the author supports VET or not, and also over time; later definitions have tended to be broader and looser (Ducker, 1993) in the same way that later industry competency standards have tended to be more holistic and less atomistic. This philosophical dichotomy continues today in vocational and technical teacher education. Some of the traditional programs--trade and industrial education and health occupations, for example--rely heavily on occupational experience as the primary vehicle for initial entry as a vocational teacher. Alternative state certification schemes are still in effect today to allow those with a high school diploma or its equivalency and extensive occupational experience (ranging from two to nine years, with an average of four years) to teach their craft or trade in public schools. National Training Framework and VET The Australian V.E.T. sector commonly encompasses three main sub-groups of education and workforce training activity, described here in very general terms: a) Entry-level training: traditionally called apprenticeship training, it is also now referred to as traineeships. Previously in Australia, training was conducted by publicly-funded institutes of Technical and Further Education (T.A.F.E.), but it is increasingly occurring through private training providers and on-site industry training provision; b) In-service training for those at work, carried out by consultants or by in-house training staff; c) Labour Market Programs which may occur at pre-employment or re-training for re-entry stages, for basic job application training, English for migrants, often called English as a Second Language (E.S.L.) courses, literacy and numeracy. In Australia, these programs have had a full range of providers (T.A.F.E. Institutes, private providers, industry providers), including the Adult and Community Education (A.C.E.) sector, and are usually awarded as government contracts. Other traditional vocational pro-grams--most notably home economics and agriculture--rely heavily on college-level teacher preparation but usually include some "practical" or project-oriented experiences. They historically align administratively with their subject-matter colleges, such as a college of agriculture or home economics, and include strong subject-matter curriculums. Other more recent programs identified with vocational education--such as business education, marketing education and technology education--seem to include both employment or practical experience (often in laboratory environments) and align about equally with a subject-orient-ed college or a college of education. Despite the paucity of empirical research, it has generally been acknowledged that VET has had considerable effects on teachers' roles. It is often suggested that VET teachers and trainers have become 'facilitators' rather than up-front teachers, and Harris et al. (1995,pp. 270-271), for example, described the VET teacher as a 'resource person' who 'facilitates learning' with a wide range of roles. Other writers, however, maintain that VET has limited teachers' roles, with one of the teachers in Robinson's (1993) study saying 'You're more of a marker than a teacher'. It was pointed out many years ago that some VET teachers were uncomfortable with the role of a 'resource person' (Hobart & Harris, 1980); in the case of Robinson's study, clearly the teachers saw a 'resource person' as being a smaller not a larger role. Programs in higher education grew up largely around subject-specific areas. In the 1988-89 academic year, 428 colleges and universities purported to offer at least one vocational or technical teacher education program: 90 in agricultural education, 236 in business education, 32 in health occupations education, 268 in home economics education, 89 in marketing education (distributive education), 98 in vocational special needs education, 176 in technology education (industrial arts) and 122 in trade and industrial education, The programs were in public and private institutions and administered in a variety of academic colleges (such as business, home economics, agriculture, technology, applied arts and sciences) and departmental structures (such as their own department, a concentration or emphasis in a subject-related department or a major within a comprehensive vocational education department). A draft report prepared by this author for the National Assessment of Vocational Education (The Quality of Vocational Education: Background Papers from the 1994 National Assessment of Vocational Education, to be published in early 1996 by the Department of Education), however, notes that these numbers were found to be considerably inflated. Several of the 428 colleges and universities--at least 10 percent--had closed their vocational teacher education programs. Many other programs hadn't graduated vocational education teachers in years. Some college officials responded that they didn't really have vocational teacher education programs, and they didn't consider the preparation of such teachers to be part of their mission. VET and Teachers Vocational and technical teacher education today is delivered through at least three major design and delivery models with lots of variations within each: alternative certification programs, primarily using occupational experience as a substitute for formal education, in-service education or staff development programs sponsored variously by state departments of education, colleges and universities, local school systems, professional associations, policy-influencing groups, education consultants or vendors; and college or university degree programs. In reality, there probably is a fourth approach: a "do-it-yourself" model, in that many vocational and technical education teachers--especially in postsecondary technical schools or community colleges--receive no teacher preparation, at least prior to the beginning of their teaching career. The basic belief of many vocational educators is that one must have experienced his craft extensively to teach it, and that knowledge gleaned on the job can and indeed should substitute for more formal knowledge acquired in higher education classrooms or through extensive professional development programs. But the cumulative follow-up studies and research evidence do not support the practice. In-service Education. Several studies have concluded that much of in-service education is largely ineffective, lacking in substance or follow-through and often doesn't get at the theoretical underpinnings or applications that are necessary to initiate and sustain changes. Seemingly, there's very little time provided in the school calendar for teacher in-service education and certainly not the time or the processes needed to bring about long-term, substantive change implied in the various reforms proposed for education. NAVE did report that most schools, school districts or consortia (ranging from 61 percent of postsecondary, institutions to 85 percent of consortia and urban schools) spent money on staff development. State departments also made available in-service training with federal Perkins Act funds in at least five topical areas in 199293. The scope, nature and quality of the in-service education, however, have not been described or assessed. College and University Degree Programs. Colleges and universities have long been providers of teachers for public vocational and technical education pro- grams, especially at the secondary level. This training has primarily been through an undergraduate major in one of the traditional subject areas. These traditional programs have suffered major enrollment declines in teacher preparation in recent years. Perhaps as many as one-third of them have been either eliminated, combined with other majors or reduced to a small student census and thus produce very few teachers. This is especially true where programs existed in colleges of agriculture, home economics, business and technology. It is less true for programs in colleges of education, wherein some vocational and technical programs are starting to rebound. Because of the diversity of programs and methods for delivery within vocational and technical education, it is difficult to provide a snapshot of the field or to forecast what must be done to improve teacher education. The following observations, formed after a five-year review of existing data and reports, speak to the overall map of vocational and technical teacher education in the United States. The theory of knowledge to undergird vocational and technical teacher education as we enter the 21st century and the technological/service/information workplace revolution has not been adequately researched or debated by scholars or practitioners of vocational and technical education. In general, vocational and technical teacher education has not been a principal player at the table of those colleges and universities now significantly reforming their teacher education programs. In studies conducted by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education and UCVE, only six vocational teacher education units reported they were principal players in the design of reform efforts. Colleges and universities have greatly diminished their capacity to produce teachers for our nation's systems of vocational and technical education. There probably are fewer than 100 vocational and technical teacher education programs with four or more programs at the approximately 1,200 colleges and universities with comprehensive teacher education programs. The faculty of vocational and technical education who actually teach teachers to teach has diminished; however, many of these (former) teacher educators continue to work in colleges and universities as instructors of technical subject matter, cooperative extension agents or trainers in non-teaching option programs. In 1989, the profile of the typical vocational teacher educator was a middle-aged white man (except in business education and home economics, where white women predominate) who had been working in higher education for 16 years. That study showed 11 percent planned to retire by the mid-1990s. V.E.T. policy Framework for Teachers Policy initiatives which address training provision fall under the heading of Vocational Education and Training (V.E.T.). They are intended to ensure that funding is made available for national and strategic interventions which relate to the acquisition or alteration of skills. These policies also address whole-country accreditation. These policies are implemented through the Australian National Training Authority (A.N.T.A.), its rhetoric suggesting that the policies are "industry driven". For example, A.N.T.A.'s most recent strategy document (Australian National Training Authority 1998) contains many references to "industry," and industry is included in its mission statement: "To ensure that the skills of the Australian labour force are sufficient to support internationally competitive commerce and industry..." (p. i). Until recently, V.E.T. in Australia has been partitioned into specified industry sectors, each with its own defined area of practice and particular activities. There are national and often state Industry Training Councils and Boards which exist in the name of the industry/les they represent. For example, they cover food, rural, tourism, electrical and printing industries. Key Issues Affecting the VET Sector in Australia How can such a mismatch arise between carefully constructed and funded policy and the real situation? First, it arises from the historical class-divided manner in which Australian society has determined that some youth ("good with their hands") will enter the trades and vocational band of occupations, while others ("good with their heads") will go to university and into the professions. Second, it is the largely male and white history of V.E.T. itself that is responsible for building the meanings of the term "vocation" and "industry". The focus of activity for researchers tends to have been guided largely by the prevailing social values within which the research is conducted. Unless ways can be found to analyze more critically the policy decisions made in the field of Vocational Education and Training, then research will remain of limited value in showing what ought to be, as opposed to simply what is. Vocational-technical education must join the simultaneous renewal efforts of traditional teacher education and public school practice if its interests and philosophies are to be represented in tomorrow's schools. Whether the decline in overall enrollments in vocational teacher preparation programs is cause for alarm may depend more on philosophy than on politics, economics and supply and demand. For example, in most states, some teachers in selected vocational areas can be licensed without a bachelor's degree. This fact, coupled with pressures in many states for alternative certification processes, will inevitably generate defensible grounds for the elimination of low-enrollment vocational teacher preparation programs. In addition, there is a strong belief held by many professionals across disciplines that specialized teacher preparation programs should be integrated into a single delivery system. The rationale for this belief is strengthened considerably by the mainstreaming movements that have merged special education and vocational education with general education. If we believe that all students should be educated in common schools and common classrooms, and if we believe that all teachers should have mastery of basic skills, content knowledge in their discipline, an understanding of liberal arts and knowledge of pedagogy, then we have to examine the decline of vocational teacher preparation programs in a different light. Perhaps it is important that vocational teachers be held to the same standards for certification or licensure as their liberal arts counterparts to eliminate the notion of separate and unequal quality in the teaching force. Perhaps the best way to couple academic and vocational curriculum and instruction in the schools is to merge teacher preparation programs in higher education. If there is concurrence on the need for change, we must decide as a community of vocational teacher educators on the nature and direction of these changes and be willing to set priorities and implement changes within our teacher education programs. Are we modeling good practice? Do we hold our faculty accountable for good teaching? Do we model authentic assessment? Can we identify, as a discipline, what a student should know and be able to do? Conclusion To move teacher education toward answers will require better use of university resources, development of quality indicators, and establishment of priorities for teacher preparation, accountability and alignment with statewide education reforms. Equally important, we must agree on the principles that will guide us through the change process as we define what a quality program will look like in the future. This will require a willingness to put on the table of reform many firmly held beliefs about our discipline and its relationship to the rest of schooling. One example is the emphasis on subject hierarchies in schools. While this discrete subject matter orientation has provided teachers and university educators with a source of professional identity and community, finding a way to blur these boundaries between liberal and vocational teacher education may help restore public confidence in our ability to move in unison with the larger school reform agenda. Broadening our notion of vocational education from the occupational alignments to a unitary concept of workforce education may also be a mechanism of reform. Such a move will inevitably mean a need to redefine vocational education standards independent of content areas such as agricultural education, business education and health occupations education. Australian vocational education and training sector is at a critical moment in vocational and technical education, especially at the high school level. The job to reform the education of our young people to enable all of them to successfully move into the workplace as well as prepare them for postsecondary education may loom as one of the greatest challenges of public schools. The key to successful education reform may well rest with knowledgeable, well-prepared teachers. Schools and other educational environments need teachers who are professionals in every sense of the word. They must be knowledgeable of the 21st century workplace, the education and training needs of the workforce and the processes that are inherent to prepare students for success. Good teachers know their learners well, are committed to student learning and pedagogically skilled to ensure that all students learn. Effective teachers are lifelong learners themselves and recognize that it takes thousands and thousands of hours of acquiring knowledge and professional education over the life span to become a truly good teacher. Many colleges of education nationwide have made great strides in incorporating new understandings of learning and teaching into their curricula. Perhaps at least 100 are heavily devoted to transforming their programs. Vocational and technical teacher education needs to be a partner in these reform efforts--not apart from them. It has much to learn from the reformers, and it has much to offer them. References AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY (ACCI) (1992) The Australian National Education and Training System: guidelines for employers (Melbourne, ACCI). Australian National Training Authority. 1998. 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"Post-compulsory education for a learning society." Australian and New Zealand Journal of Vocational Education Research 3:1:141-164. Read More