Peter Rushbrook

Qualifying the Workforce: The Use of Nationally-Recognised Training in Australian Companies.

Purpose – To report on research that examines the impact of the adoption of nationally‐recognised training by enterprises in Australia.Design/methodology/approach – The project involved a mix of methodologies including focus groups, employer survey and case studies.Findings – The research found that there had been a higher than expected adoption of nationally‐recognised training by Australian enterprises in recent years and that enterprises were using training packages to support other human resource management activities apart from training.Research limitations/implications – The case studies were confined to four industry areas of hospitality, manufacturing, arts/media and call centres.Originality/value – This paper fills a significant gap in the research literature on the use that enterprises make of nationally‐recognised training.

To publish or not to publish: that is the question?

This article discusses the factors that either encourage or discourage academics from publishing in peer‐reviewed sources. The authors draw on the findings of a study conducted at a large regional university in Australia. The findings, which are based on both quantitative and qualitative data, reveal that confidence in writing for peer‐reviewed publications was the chief factor in accounting for publication output. Other factors related to publishing output included gender, a strong work ethic, completion of a doctoral degree and seniority. The authors conclude that university managers could facilitate the production of publishing output by a number of means, e.g. targeting the building of writing confidence, supporting female academics, and offering incentives to pursue and complete doctoral studies.

Constructing the good worker: policies, practices and assumptions informing Victorian technical schools division reform, 1967‐1973

In the late 1960s the Victorian vocational education sector was in crisis. The federal Martin Report into tertiary education excised many of the sector’s university‐level courses and relocated them into new Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs), leaving many ‘middle‐level’ and technician vocational courses in limbo. Junior technical schools also offered apprenticeship and middle‐level courses, further confusing where courses were, or should be situated, suggesting an overall ‘gap’ in program provision. This challenge came when the Technical Schools Division (TSD), the smallest of Victoria’s three division structure (primary, secondary and technical) continued its struggle to maintain sectoral identity through courting acceptance from private industry and the public sector for its credentialed programmes. With significant others, TSD Director Jack Kepert, followed by Director Ted Jackson, responded by designing policy to reshape the TSD’s structure and functions and its reporting relationships within a new...

Bringing Cinderella to the ball: constructing a federal system of technical and further education in Australia, 1971–1975

Australian vocational education has a history dating from the late eighteenth century. As Australian colonies and, later, federated states evolved each constructed its own version of vocational education provision. Generally the systems, consisting of community‐based or state‐controlled colleges for the training of operatives, apprenticeships and professional support personnel, were poorly resourced and lacked powerful sponsors to support and promote the education and training of their mostly working‐class students. By the early 1970s Australian governments had developed commissions to supplement the funding of state‐based elementary, secondary and university education systems, even though under the Australian Constitution education remained state‐controlled matter. A reformist federal Labor government at the time consolidated elementary, secondary and university funding but neglected to consider, or even acknowledge, the 400,000 vocational education students not covered by these commissions. Following pressure from vocational education teacher unions, among others, the Labor government established the Australian Committee for Technical and Further Education (ACOTAFE) to address the needs of these students. At ACOTAFE’s first meeting on 25 March 1973, the Minister for Education Kim E. Beazley said, ‘It will be a renaissance in education when technical and further education cease to be Cinderellas in education. It is the role of your committee to bring Cinderella to her rightful role as princess’. ACOTAFE was to be chaired by Myer Kangan from the Department of Labour and National Service. The committee’s published outcomes were referred to evermore as the iconic ‘Kangan Report’ rather than TAFE in Australia: Report on Needs in Technical and Further Education, its formal title. The report gave Australian vocational education a name (TAFE), a philosophy (access to all through lifelong learning) and much needed capital works and infrastructure funding. The paper will outline the circumstances leading to the formation of the committee, its work and its outcomes. Focus will be placed on the influential role of Chairman Kangan in shaping ACOTAFE’s conclusions. A key theme within the paper is the intersection of biography, politics and the economy in shaping policy construction.

Lest we forget: the Kapooka Tragedy 1945

This article explores an incident that raises questions relating to the making and unmaking of history, heritage and social memory. It also points to the role of the historian in unravelling forgotten pasts. On 21 May 1945, at the Royal Australian Engineers Training Camp (RAETC) Kapooka near the provincial New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga, twenty‐four ‘sappers’ or engineers, and their two ‘other ranks’ trainers, were killed in a demolitions training exercise gone terribly wrong. The accident remains the largest in Australian army history. However, following a brief flurry of national grief public memory of the tragedy soon slipped into historical obscurity. The article narrates the Kapooka story and then reflects on its role as an exemplar of how a society makes, unmakes or forgets its past.