A Shared Responsibility Apprenticeships for the 21St Century

A Shared Responsibility: Apprenticeships for the 21st Century

A submission to DEEWR in response to the report.

Apprenticeships Plus Level 1, 192-198 High St, Northcote. Victoria. P.O. Box 2065, Preston DC. 3072

Submitted by Chief Executive Officer, Janette Etherington Contact: 03 9481 9102

April 8 2011 Apprenticeships Plus is appreciative of the opportunity to respond to the report of the Apprenticeships Expert Panel.

This submission consists of our response to Recommendations 5 and 10.

Apprenticeships Plus is a not-for-profit Group Training Organisation accredited under the National Standards for Group Training Organisations. Apprenticeships Plus (hereafter referred to as APlus) has operated as a GTO in Victoria since 1983.

Response to Recommendations

Recommendation 5 “Redirect current Australian Government employer incentives to provide structured support services to eligible apprentices and trainees and their employers in occupations that are priorities for the Australian economy. While a wide range of occupations should be trained through apprenticeship and traineeship pathways, Australian Government support should focus on occupations that have tangible and enduring value for the economy – both in the traditional trades and the newer forms of apprenticeships and traineeships, such as community services, health services and information technology.”

APlus agrees with the proposal to redirect Australian Government employer incentives away from some traineeships, in order to focus on occupations that are priorities for the Australian economy. APlus supports the focus on traditional trades, but we submit that rather than reduce the spread of incentive-eligible traineeships to those “such as community services, health services and information technology”, that several exemptions apply to the current spread.

Exemption 1: All retail traineeships.

1) The nature of the retail industry is such that effective training can be provided on-the-job by virtually all employers. The current incentive system is open to exploitation by employers who can sign up new or existing staff into traineeships, for training which the employer is intending to deliver anyway, and which the employer generally has the financial and infrastructure capacity to support.

2) Casual or part-time retail staff who are supporting themselves through school or university often find themselves signed up into a Certificate II or III in Retail Operations, not understanding that their further training and employment opportunities are being risked when they leave the retail sector, as they then have a “prior qualification”.

Exemption 2: All Hospitality traineeships at Certificate II level Exemption 3: Hospitality traineeships where the employer is a fast-food restaurant

Exemptions 2 and 3 would work together to address an area of concern for many in the VET sector in the employer incentive system as it currently stands, where young casual workers in fast food restaurants can be signed up into traineeships without any understanding of the training

2 contract provisions, and who may not receive appropriate skills development or training. New staff in fast-food environments can be upskilled on the job for the same reasons given above in relation to Retail trainees. Casual staff exiting the fast food industry when they turn 21 years of age are also disadvantaged in the workforce if they have a Certificate III qualification, as they often have not acquired all of the generic skills of the certificate. Under current Victorian training policy (the Victorian Training Guarantee), these young people are then unable to attract training funding at the Certificate III level, and are not sufficiently skilled or experienced to progress to Certificate IV level.

Exemption 4: Any traineeship where the employer has more than 20 trainees employed at any time, with the exception of Group Training Organisations.

The current system of employer incentives is open to potential abuse by employers who seek to maximise income support for new and/or existing staff. For example, APlus is aware of a Call Centre in the outer north- eastern metropolitan corridor of Melbourne where we are advised that in excess of 1,000 trainees are currently employed. A business large enough to employ 1,000 trainees could safely be assumed to have the infrastructure and financial capacity to train its own staff, and employ them, without the Australian Government incentives subsidising their payroll.

The other question that must be asked in this scenario in relation to quality on-the-job training is whether the appropriate ratio of skilled supervisors to trainees can be achieved in such an environment.

As a GTO working exclusively in Victoria, we are concerned under Recommendation 5 that the Business stream of traineeships may be impacted by a redirection of government incentives. We would highlight the importance of these traineeships to the Victorian economy, which has as a major component services supplied by office-based businesses, including state and local government.

This stream is almost exclusively used by young women school leavers, who undertake a Business traineeship as a considered decision to advance their career choice, or who have failed to earn the necessary TER score to enter the university or TAFE course of their first or second choice. If employer incentives were to be removed from this vocational stream, a significant detrimental impact would be experienced by this cohort – which represents 50% of the school- leavers entering the job market every year. Disenfranchising this cohort of jobseekers would not be in the interests of achieving satisfactory employment outcomes for hundreds of young women every year, most of whom do not fit the standard definition of “disadvantaged”, but often do not have fully-fledged literacy, numeracy and communication skills, and who require exposure to a workplace (work experience) which they have often not received during their secondary schooling.

Such a decision would also actively work against the Victorian State government’s VYP (Victoriaworks for Young People) program, which offers opportunities for traineeships (predominantly Business or Education streams) in a wide range of government departments, as a way to offer opportunity to disadvantaged young people.

3 APlus would also highlight the value of Education stream traineeships, which have a strong take-up under the VYP. These traineeships not only attract Year 11 and 12 school leavers without the TER scores to enter teacher training at University, but also attract many applicants from another disadvantaged equity group – women returning to the workforce.

In a scenario where Business and Education traineeships were ineligible for Australian Government employer incentives, there is real potential that a shortage of entry-level applicants would be experienced by state and local government, and the primary and secondary school sectors, as employers.

Recommendation 10 “Provide additional support for apprentices and trainees who face specific challenges, such as:  Indigenous Australians  disability  located in regional or remote Australia  having poor language, literacy and numeracy skills. Australian Government support will be provided to these apprentices, trainees and their employers to assist in overcoming barriers to participation and completion of their apprenticeship or traineeship. Support will be through the provision of tailored structured support services and the continuation of some current Australian Government employer incentives.”

APlus supports this recommendation strongly. We have had considerable experience with employing extremely disadvantaged jobseekers through longstanding and current partnerships with a national not-for-profit NGO, and a newly-established Social Enterprise.

Jobseekers in this cohort have suffered one, and often many, of the following barriers to employment:  Indigenous background  Homelessness, or risk of homelessness  Alcohol or substance abuse  Long-term unemployment  Physical or mental health issues  Criminal records  Refugee status  Family breakdown  Generational unemployment

Our model of working with the 2 afore-mentioned organisations as the Host Employers enables a model of multi-tiered support to be offered to the apprentice or trainee. Social workers from the host organisations provide support and assistance with the high needs social issues such as emergency housing, professional counselling, etc. APlus as the GTO provides not only our “everyday” high level of pastoral care and mentoring, but the significant and continuous level required by this cohort. Apprentices and trainees entering employment from within this cohort frequently lack the ability to function at the required minimum standard in the workplace. This lack of ability manifests itself more strongly and more frequently than in other cohorts, therefore a significantly higher level of

4 pastoral care and mentoring is required to be provided by a GTO fieldie to enable successful completion than is normally required.

This model generates completion outcomes of up to 70% - a figure well in excess of the norm for apprenticeships and traineeships in general, and disadvantaged cohorts in particular. The cost in terms of time spent by GTO field officers however, is correspondingly disproportionate to all other cohorts, as intense and ongoing support for, and accessibility to, the apprentices and trainees is required.

APlus provides this extra level of support to this cohort, as it is within our organisational mission to support high needs jobseekers. The current funding from all levels of government, even in aggregate, is grossly insufficient to provide a financial incentive to do this work, so the additional cost is cross-subsidised by APlus.