On October 3rd, the Australian Government, in collaboration with states and territories, released the VET Workforce Blueprint (the Blueprint) aimed at supporting and growing Australia’s vocational education and training (VET) workforce. This Blueprint provides a comprehensive roadmap for national, local, training provider, and industry action to address VET workforce challenges and barriers.
The Blueprint outlines three key goals:
- Grow the workforce: Increasing the number of people entering the VET workforce pipeline to ensure long-term supply of the staff needed.
- Retain and develop the workforce: Improving retention and supporting workforce capability to ensure a sustainable, highly skilled and quality VET workforce, both now and into the future.
- Understand the workforce: Developing a data collection for the VET workforce and undertaking foundational work and research to better understand the various roles and pathways across all VET contexts.
The Blueprint identifies 8 opportunities and 14 actions to support and sustain the VET workforce in Australia. It provides a long-term plan that will adapt to changes within the VET sector and the economy.
To support the Blueprint, the Australian Government is investing up to $100 million over 5 years through the National Skills Agreement. This includes $70 million for state and territory initiatives, with matched funding from states and territories, and $30 million for agreed areas of national action.
The initial suite of agreed national actions includes:
- Occupational mapping for the VET workforce
- A VET workforce data strategy
- An ongoing research program into workforce issues
- Mapping and analysing compliance and administrative burden to develop strategies to reduce this burden