An International Perspective: Workbased learning in Australia

1
An International PerspectiveWork-based learning
in Australia

• Nicky Solomon
• Head of Education Lifelong Learning
• City University, London

2
Overview

• Australian higher education context similarities
  differences
• Work-based learning in Australia some examples
• Australian-based research on learning at/for
  work a few outcomes

3
Similarities Higher Education agendas in
Australia the UK

• Important role of HE in global knowledge economy
• Desired increase in number of people with HE
  qualifications
• Competing in the same increasingly competitive
  global marketplace
• Existing engagement with employers/industries,
  yet strong pressure to increase HE links and
  partnerships with employer and industry groups
• Pervasive rhetoric of the real world,
  relevance, useful knowledge and skills,
  employability
• Vocationalising of education across sectors,
  together with blurring of boundaries between
  schools, further education and higher education
• Universities have similar structures and systems

4
Similarities HE students in Australia the UK

• Aligned to the interest in increasing numbers of
  HE students
• Student profiles broadening re employment,
  education and socio-cultural backgrounds
• Increasing numbers of international students
• Students pay fees (Australia has led the way)
• Growing numbers of full and part-time students
  are working

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Similarities Work in Australia the UK

• Changing employment patterns (Eg only half the
  Australian workforce is in permanent full-time
  work)
• New ways of organising and coordinating work
  including inter-organisational networks of
  projection, supply chains and outsourcing
  arrangements
• Aging population later retirement age
• Traditional career pathways breaking down, job
  change increasing aspect of working life.
• Changing concept of skill and knowledge (not just
  in relation to job and occupational skills but
  also concerned with an array of personal
  capacities and attitudes)

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Differences Australian HE context

• No funding councils
• Direct relationship between Commonwealth
  Department of Education Science Training and
  universities
• Further Education in the main is organised
  through each State government
• No brokers decreasing number of govt authorities
  and agencies
• Increasing dependence on non-government funding,
  particularly from international students
  (although UK is catching up)
• In comparison with the UK, fewer government
  research funds
• There are no national policies on widening
  participation, let alone on engagement with
  employers. Employability skills is, but only in
  relation to vocational education and training
• Education does not dominate government policies
  or the percentage of GDP

7
University income in Australia by source,
19392000
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Yet, at the same time (as in the UK)

• Increasing talk, activity and study that brings
  together work and learning in HE.
• A repositioning of HE roles and practices in
  response to global and national agendas and
  conditions.
• Australian HE programmes are, in various shapes
  and forms, engaged with industry/employer groups,
  professional bodies, workplaces in the design and
  delivery of teaching programmes.
• Universities are responding to
• - changing government funding arrangements
• changes in understandings about knowledge
• changes in student population
• appeal and popularising of situated learning
• the need to be seen to be relevant and part of
  the real world
• need/want to connect more with the world (in
  particular the world of work)

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WBL partnership modelUTS experience

• Three different partnerships (Engineering,
  Business and Education) fitted well with
• Practice-based education orientation of these
  areas
• Existing widespread links with industry,
  employers, professional bodies in research
  activities, sponsorships, placements, advisory
  boards
• Entrepreneurial and income generating activities
• Large numbers of students who were in employment.

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But .. and besides.. but at the same time..

• But, in spite of the goodwill, for a number of
  reasons WBL in that form was not sustainable
• - boutique offering and too resource hungry
• - required high level of learner support (for
  many)
• - involved high levels of organisational support
  beyond the negotiation of the partnership
• And besides work is already integrated in
  numerous ways across various teaching and
  learning programmes and besides partnerships of
  different kinds continue to grow
• But at the same time, the partnerships were
  persuasive and acted as spin for both sides, and
  this generated outcomes, although perhaps not the
  anticipated ones (See Gustavs Clegg (2005)
  Working the Knowledge Game? Universities and
  Corporate Organizations in Partnership in
  Management Learning Vol 36(1) 9-30)

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Research findings

• ARC study Uncovering learning at work
• ARC study Changing work, changing workers,
  changing selves a study of pedagogies in the new
  vocationalism

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Uncovering learning at work

• Purpose to uncover existing everyday learning
  practices and to suggest how to strategically
  take them up to promote more learning.
• Just two findings
• Rejection by many employees of the label
  learner
• Idea of promoting everyday learning was not
  always welcomed there was a concern that
  formalising (naming or managing) everyday
  learning would result in a loss of its value

13
Changing work project

• A study on how the real world of work is played
  out in sites across educational sectors
• The focus was on programmes in schools, FE
  colleges, private colleges, community colleges,
  and universities that were producing workers for
  the IT and Tourism Hospitality industries.

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Examples of work and learning

• Simulations holistic (eg hotel school)
• Simulated work projects (eg bringing work-like
  problems/projects into the classroom)
• Real work projects (eg projects in own
  workplace)
• Work placements/experience

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Issues arising

• Particular assumptions about expectations of
  students
• Multiple positions of learners in work-related
  pedagogies
• Variations in how knowledge is understood, what
  knowledge is valued, and where it is assumed to
  be located
• Minimal attention to differences in learning in
  education settings and working in workplaces.
• A celebration of the real - within an
  understanding that the real world only exists
  outside education settings?

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Concluding questions

• Work is already integrated into higher education
  programmes, and employers are engaged with
  universities increasingly in varied ways. Is this
  not enough? Do students need more, or is it that
  they need better?
• What are the differences in the two domains of
  practice (workplaces and education)? As
  educators, how should we work these differences?
• How can work pedagogies and curriculum attend to
  difference among students, and the significant
  differences at and in work.
• What are the roles of HE? To prepare people for
  a particular job/occupation/profession? To
  prepare people for living and working in a world
  that is characterised by rapid change?