Hello to the IT Ultimo Mob

We r sitting here in M1.10 checking out bogging with Gary

Practitioner experiences and expectations with the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (TAA40104): A discussion of the issues

NCVER have published discussion paper about the experiences and expectations of the Training and Assessment (TAA40104). As the standard teaching qualification in the vocational education and training (VET) sector and its adequacy and relevance are interrogated.

The paper provides a good historical context and raises issues about teacher efficacy. It is part of a review process in relation to the TAA Cert IV.

Your comments would be appreciated to generate some informed discussion.

In focusing on some of the key concerns about the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, Smith (2004, p.73) emphasised the fact that the training of people teaching in the VET sector is highly complex, particularly as trainers and assessors are operating in diverse settings and contexts and under a range of employment agreements and conditions. As a consequence, Smith suggests, the preparation of teachers and trainers is not likely to be as straightforward as it might be for teachers in other educational sectors. Extreme diversity and complexity ensure that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to teacher education in the sector is unlikely to work.

A Hairiffic Day at Broadway

This is Stephanie and myself after we had been to the hairdresser at Broadway.

Tapatjatjaka Visit to Sydney

We are here with the mob from Tapatjatjaka Arts Centre - Kenneth, Jane, Stephanie, Ansara and Susan. They are down here on an arts study tour. We are all in the classroom looking at how easy it is to place a photo - only taken yesterday - up on to the internet. This photo was taken at the Botanical Gardens.

Outreach 2009

Social Inclusion Research Papers

As you are all aware the Govt has a new name for Access and Equity! Its social inclusion and the reason why we know is that there no longer central support for NSW Outreach. Our equity section has traditionally sent out a link to research papers on the social inclusion site to assist us with any of our funding applications ok and we thought we will put a link up here for you all too ok.

Lock up, Locked Out

Peter Jeffs, Untitled 1, 1995-2000/2007, gelatin silver photograph, 115x174cm. From the exhibition Time and Distance at Centre for Contemporary Photography 2008.

The greatest power for progressive social change lies precisely with the excluded. The people who can best define and interpret the reality of exclusion and socio-economic insecurity are also potentially the only ones who can, in the end, determine the means towards, and the ends of, social inclusion.

John Falzon's eloquent article in Human rights Defender, Volume 17: Issue 1: August 2008, provides an overview of service delivery and advocacy to the most marginalised in our communities in the context of devolution of state responsibilities and "diminishing rights of citizens".

Further, the coercive corralling of disadvantaged groups into the low end of the labour market may result in the lowering of labour costs, but this in itself can act as a disincentive for business to actually invest in training and technological innovation. In other words, productivity increases can be discouraged because profit margins are increased on the backs of cheaper and more compliant labour.

Can learning outcomes be divorced from processes of learning?

This is not the first time this question has been tackled. Leesa Wheelahan's paper interrogates the role of training packages and curriculum. What effect do training packages have on students access to theoretical knowledge underpining vocational practice?

This paper argues that competency-based vocational education and training qualifications in Australia deny students access to the theoretical knowledge that underpins vocational practice, and that they result in unitary and unproblematic conceptions of work because students are not provided with the means to participate in theoretical debates shaping their field. Competency-based training (CBT) is thus a form of ‘silencing’ because it excludes students from access to the means needed to envisage alternative futures within their field.