Policy influences on the implementation of vocational education and training in Australian Secondary Schools1

Abstract

The provision of vocational education in Australian secondary schools has a long history. This article traces policy influences on the provision of vocational education since Federation, but with a particular emphasis on the 1980s and 1990s. Since 1901 vocational education provision in schools has shifted from a state prerogative with economic objectives to a 1999 position of shared responsibility with the Federal government and attendant Federal and state post-school vocational training authorities. During the 1990s a school-based model of vocationalism emerged that encompassed economic, educational and social objectives not always present in the prescribed post-school model. Consequently a process of accommodation emerged as school-based vocational programs developed regional partnerships with enterprises but within the various national qualifications and standards frameworks of the post-school VET sector. The rise of these two models of vocationalism is having an impact on national policy development as the concept of structural integration between school and post-school, education and work, and vocational and academic activities now takes hold.