Rediscovering the importance of learning and curriculum in vocational education and training in Australia

Abstract

Vocational education has become the instrument in Australia to create a more effective workforce in an age of technological change and intense international competition. Policies have been introduced which have focused narrowly upon competency-based training (CBT), the end product, with empirical research revealing that CBT has not been effective or effectively introduced. The importance of processes, particularly effective learning and curriculum, and teacher pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986), as well as implementation issues, have been ignored. There has also been failure to recognise that many vocational education and training (VET) teachers/trainers have received minimal or no teacher training and even those formally trained have not been exposed to sufficient educational psychology, especially more recent research on skill learning and the development of expertise, transfer of learning and lifelong learning, key areas for effective learning in VET. Good curriculum documents can help maintain content knowledge currency and increase teaching capability through incorporation of knowledge from these key areas of psychology. Some implications for curriculum of these key areas are explored. Increased efficiency in the workplace can only be achieved through recognition of the importance of learning and serious efforts to develop curricula which provide adequate guidance and in-service education for teachers/trainers