The Brotherhood of St. Laurence (BSL) welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) Vocational Education and Training (VET) Building a better understanding of the VET workforce consultation. BSL is a social justice organisation working towards an Australia free of poverty. Our purpose is to advance a fair Australia through our leadership on policy reform, our partnerships with communities and the quality of our services. Our approach is informed directly by people experiencing disadvantage and uses evidence drawn from our research, together with
insights from our programs and services, to develop practical solutions that work.
BSL makes several recommendations in response to the consultation paper.
Recommendations
Recommendation to expand scope of learning support roles
1. JSA should expand the methodology for VET workforce occupational mapping to include hidden
workers in the VET workforce, specifically specialist staff not employed by RTOs but critical to
support for learners with high needs.
Recommendations to support the development of the data strategy
2. JSA should establish a VET workforce advisory group with VET practitioners to inform how VET
workforce data is used to inform policy and funding decisions.
3. JSA should undertake national VET stakeholder consultations to inform accessibility and utility
of the proposed VET workforce dashboard
Recommendations for areas of consideration in the research program
4. JSA should include applied VET researchers in research teams, through an institutional lend-out
program, to contribute to research capability building and to leverage VET institutional
expertise and perspective within JSA’s research program.
5. JSA should include a specific program of research on the equity and inclusion capability of the
VET workforce, including an analysis of existing capability gaps.
6. JSA’s program of VET workforce research should be scoped to not duplicate work already in
progress by the TAFE Centres of Excellence.
7. JSA should include student voice as a core principle underpinning the research program and as a
consistent source of data across the VET workforce research program.