NCVER “No Frills” Conference 16th National Research Training Conference

Alice Springs, 10-13 July 2007

VET IN A MULTI-SECTOR CONTEXT: STRENGTHENING THE CENTRAL COAST REGION

Theme: VET In Context

Authors:

Stephen Crump, Central Coast Campuses (University of Newcastle - Central Coast; TAFE NSW - Hunter Institute) [email protected]

Marie Larkins, TAFE NSW – Hunter Institute [email protected]

Mallory Mills, Central Coast Community College [email protected]

Breakout: No. 2 Time Slot: 12 noon – 1.00pm, Wednesday 11th July. Venue : Room 3 Charles Darwin University, Alice Springs Campus

Introduction

In recent times, many reports have argued for educational providers to think creatively about how to best meet the learning needs of students from all age groups. These developments aimed to cater for the education and training needs of the full range of students, increasingly providing broad access to a variety of vocational education pathways, an improved mode of career support and access to different sectors for qualifications and accreditation.

One way this is being achieved in Australia is through the development of multi- sector campuses (clo-located or virtual). However, this is an area of VET policy and practice that has been poorly researched, largely because multi-sector sites and activities dwell in a grey area between different sectoral boundaries, so receive little direct attention. In some cases, multi-sector campuses are seen as being one-off solutions to local political initiatives or problems, therefore not representative of systems as a whole, and thus not having much to say to further or higher education providers as a whole.

On the other hand they can be seen as satellite campuses, that is, not as mainstream campuses, thus requiring extra effort (and cash) that is not always easy to find. This paper will outline why it is worth the effort, and why we need more research on what is potentially an answer to many of Australia’s education and training dilemmas.

Background

The National Inquiry into Rural and Remote Education (2000, p.35) argued that: ‘ideological and historical barriers to the sharing of facilities and resources are inhibiting the capacity of rural and remote Australia to deliver a quality education to all children’. Multi-partner campuses have become increasingly attractive to educational providers as a viable method of efficiently and effectively combining educational services. A consideration of multi-partner campuses by the Queensland University of Technology (DETYA, 1999) concluded that: ‘the opening of a major campus in an educationally under serviced region actually creates its own demand’.

Changes to public funding for the various levels and sectors were used as leverage for many of the structural reforms occurring at this time. Many of these interventions were aimed at making education responsive as an industry to local and regional aspirations and economies. These levers were particularly influential in further and higher education. However, some aspects of reform were driven by educators who saw the need to restructure schooling so that the artificial barriers between primary, secondary and tertiary education - constructed post-WW2 - could be partially demolished, allowing greater access to education to a broader community, and linking that educational experience to workplace and employer expectations and changing relations. As early as 1993, the OECD (p.35) reported:

The once clear boundary between secondary and higher education is gradually blurring and even losing its relevance. The term ‘higher education’ itself, which in the past was associated with a specific set of institutions, now covers a much wider variety of courses and programs ...’.

2 Thus cultural changes were part and parcel of the economic and social factors brought to bear to turn education into a national worldclass endeavour. A national qualifications framework [AQF] and elements of a national school curriculum in each state and territory developed during the 1990s – and currently both being revitalised - were key outcomes that created new opportunities for both greater access to education and training, and better continuity between levels, sectors and providers.

The AQF links senior secondary school to VET and University qualifications in an hierarchical sequence. One consequence of these changes was a renewed emphasis on improving teaching and learning through auditing and reporting on quality and standards. This process focussed the attention of educational institutions on student needs, both curricular and personal, especially in an environment of choice. Information and communication technology not previously available also led to significant change.

The AQF, and the emergence of ‘pathways’ through school credentials it encouraged (including, for example, the option of taking 5 years to complete the NSW HSC) – as well as curriculum pathways linking the different sectors through credit transfer – led to the development of dual awards shared between institutions, as well as within new multi-sector co-located institutional partnerships. The spatial context of schooling, further and higher education and training thus shifted for students as they began to move between school, TAFE and university campuses, or to move across these levels/sectors on a shared location. Movement for teaching staff was less common, hampered by industrial relations issues and systemic idiosyncrasies.

The development of a portfolio of awards, with portability through linked organisations and cross accreditation, has not depended on whether these organisational links are co-located locally, or virtually and globally. Both types of cross-sector institutional partnerships have emerged and generally thrived. While face-to-face contact remained an important ingredient in teaching and learning, it is no longer the sole educational experience one encountered over 10-15 years through childhood into adulthood.

Local, regional and rural contexts were significant in shaping these shifts, with many of the changes to instructional management aimed at addressing barriers to access and educational equity. In 2007, education in Australia is a national undertaking with a clear and distinct character unknown a decade earlier. Internationally, shifts in thinking have led educational practice in Australia towards notions of ‘lifelong learning’, ‘flexible / alternate modes of course delivery’, ‘the knowledge economy’, ‘e-learning’, ‘the learning community / city / region’, ‘the global education village’, ‘education precinct’, ‘school of the future’, ‘brokerage’, ‘the engaged educational institution’, ‘cyber high school’, ‘workplace learning’ and ‘recognition of prior learning’.

The co-operation of all sectors and providers is crucial to the potential success of these innovations and there is an increasing impetus to seek closer relationships with communities and clients beyond traditional intakes. While whole-of-organisation responses are rare as yet, policy and practice in education increasingly reflect new roles in responding to private and public demands. These networks include universities, institutes / colleges of TAFE, private and community providers of VET,

3 and schools. Whatever the nature of these new networks, educational institutions no longer operate in isolation from each other, their local and international competitors, local communities and feeder institutions.

Given these facts, there has been a range of drivers and barriers to TAFE-University linkages, with teaching, assessment and the role of practice central concerns on both sides. In 1993 the AVCC established a set of credit transfer principles. This was subsumed by the 1998 Australian Qualifications Framework Advisory Board recommendations. Both documents indicate the goodwill with which universities and TAFE have approached some of the dilemmas arising from cross-sector linkages.

There is good reason for this. The aging population of Australia means that universities will not survive if they rely on school leavers for their market. There will be nearly 6 million people between 45-50 years old in the next decade. This group is the most likely source for new skills, and educational funding, under current policy directions, is likely to respond by following students to their learning destinations.

Constructive strategies for improving TAFE-university links involve including universities in the Training Package development process so that perceived barriers are eliminated at the source (within the curriculum) rather than encountered in practice (within the classroom). Understanding the preferences and choices of students from Yrs 10-12 is another strategy to assist determining whether TAFE, university and/or work provision will meet changing educational participation in Australia. Demographic shifts - as well as those for gender, ethnicity, race and socio- economic background - are radically transforming underlying attitudes and goals in young people about when, where and how they learn. We will return to barriers and boundaries later in our paper.

Cross-Sectoral Education Policy in New South Wales

As argued above, by the end of the 1990s, the goals of public education in Australia were being given shape in the form of multi-campus schools, the extension of open learning and the establishment of multi-sector educational campuses. These developments aimed to cater for the education and training needs of the full range of students, increasingly providing broad access to a variety of vocational education pathways and an improved mode of career support.

These developments recognise that there is a danger that for the senior years (where current trends suggest that soon every second student will attend a non-government school), will become what Gidden’s (in a BBC lecture) calls a ‘shell institution’; public service institutions with the same appearance as before but now inadequate to the tasks they are called upon to perform. Connors (2000) refers to the same phenomenon in Australia as the ‘demutualisation of schooling’. The senior political and bureaucratic leadership of education in NSW is well aware of these trends. Similarly, they are aware that retention rates in senior school have peaked and are now falling, with Australia having the second highest high school drop-out rate among the main OECD countries (OECD Report, 2000); and the Central Coast region of NSW the worst senior school retention rates in NSW.

4 If the mass mono-cultural system of public education that served national and personal interests so well after WW2 is unravelling, then it is incumbent upon governments, educators, academics and citizens to reshape senior secondary schooling into something else. Multi-sector arrangements are positioned to do this well. Such a move still serves the same universal comprehensive goals for equitable educational outcomes through access to a wide range of curriculum pathways that facilitate each individual’s potential for success. Multi-sector arrangements broker educational experiences for their students that are effective and satisfying (Polesel, Teese and O’Brien, 2000).

The types of pathways offered through multi-sector senior school partnerships provide scope for courses and practical training and can assist students otherwise heading into a career dead-end. Therefore, it is not surprising that Recommendation 5.1 of The National Inquiry into Rural and Remote Education (p.36) stated:

All education and training providers should develop policies and funding formulas which encourage local and regional sharing of facilities and resources between local schools, both government and non-government, and TAFE providers in order to increase the availability and accessibility of curriculum options and educational resources’.

The NSW Department of Education and Training contributed more than $250 million in the 1990s to establish joint venture facilities that deliver education and training to nearly 20,000 students. Models of curriculum articulation generally are based upon university recognition for TAFE module completion, allowing for advanced standing by ‘exemption’ or ‘unspecified credit’, though TAFE recognition of University awards is an issue emerging as higher education graduates seek specific TAFE courses / certificates for their vocational skills that enhance their bachelor degree.

In some cases, university courses are imported into TAFE courses, with TAFE giving direct credit. In other cases, modules common to both TAFE and university are exported to allow direct credit. The traditional allowance for credit through pre- requisites can give block credit in degree programs. However, the choices available to young people can be subject to structural constraints, and are reflected in the non- linear trajectories of their movements between education and training (based mainly on ad hoc opportunities for casual jobs and training courses).

Ball, Maguire and Macrae (2000) have shown how the educational pathways and credential building practices of young people in the twenty-first century follow obtuse, tangential and sometimes improbable trajectories, aided and abetted by further and higher education sectors keen to enrol students, often outside the matriculation process. Students’ talents are being increasingly recognised in contexts outside systemic educational institutions. VET students are using work to make sense of schooling, as well as to further career goals in a way that traditional schools could never assist or enable students.

These reshaped identities are represented as a response to demands for greater choice and flexibility from clients – students, families, employers and governments. While moves in this direction have been accelerating within existing institutions they are now most visible in new cross-sector institutions. However, at present, there is little

5 knowledge about either rationale, or performance of the latter yet, given the risks involved, such momentous decisions need to be made on a sound basis.

Though the reasons behind the origins of these new identities are remarkably similar, the origins are quite varied - suggesting potential for conflicting outcomes which need to be understood. This has become more urgent, not only for this university, given the Commonwealth’s support for multi-partner campuses and educational precincts in the recent Higher Education at the Crossroads issues paper (May, 2002). The first task is to understand why these decisions were taken. The second task is to understand whether and, if so how, the identities are being reshaped.

‘Reshaping’ can mean a totally new institution, or existing institutions co-locating on one site with a set of partners who share students and costs, or by linking across locations and communities. Whatever the identity chosen, the intended outcomes are represented as a new opportunity for people to move through education and training with fewer constraints, often at a faster pace and with less cost.

The issue for us is to explore what happens at the points of transition between partners, including student’s choice of institution, how the new identity shapes curriculum for each partner, and whether reformulated curriculum is synchronised to new organisational flexibility or not. Incentives that led to institutional change, both within the partner institutions and from without, are important as is the impact these reforms may or may not be having on the organisational processes and education policy stance of a partner institutions and their host institution.

THE CENTRAL COAST OF NSW

The Central Coast region is characterised by an increasing population and economic growth but low education participation rates. Central Coast school students leave school earlier; there is a lower than NSW average retention rate in the senior years; there is lower than NSW average participation in TAFE; there is lower than NSW average participation in higher education; and a lower percentage of people with a higher qualification than the NSW average.

State and local government inquiries have focused on education as a key lever in building the community and the region. The Central Coast region does not yet have a single defining or well-recognised location or identity; rather, the region is an amalgamation of numerous “villages”, with high varying characteristics and local community cultures (rural, coastal, industrial and service), some of which are outward looking and growth-oriented, others striving to retain the traditional features and advantages of a small and homogenous locality.

The same dilemma applies to local businesses and there is a lack of a defining industry for the region. Many state government departments and initiatives locate the Central Coast as a fringe suburb of Sydney, and a very high proportion of residents leave the Central Coast daily for employment. This creates problems for building loyalty to local institutions.

6 The Ourimbah Campus

The multi-sector campus at Ourimbah on the Central Coast of NSW was established in 1989 and is a partnership involving TAFE NSW Hunter Institute, the University of Newcastle and the Central Coast Community College. The campus is well designed and resourced, providing a real option for students to be involved in any or all three tiers of post-secondary education on the one site and to achieve their education objectives in the region. It also provides an environment that supports closer relationships between the sectors and between students and staff.

Ownership of the land on which the campus is built is vested in the NSW Minister for Education and Training. However The University of Newcastle Act (1989 as amended), Part 4, Division 2, Section 19 – “Powers of Council over certain property vested in Crown” – states that the University Council “…has the control and management of that property…”. A Memorandum of Understanding between TAFE NSW Hunter Institute and The University of Newcastle defines the cooperative relationship of the two partners in respect of this issue.

Governance is assisted by a separate Memorandum of Understanding that establishes it as a joint educational campus involving higher education, VTE and community education with linkages to schools and business. Other tenants on the site include business, environment, health, research, food and regional network organisations.

The initial driver for establishing the Ourimbah campus was the need to provide a tertiary education precinct on the Central Coast, but this was expanded into a concept that would provide ‘improved educational opportunities and maximum educational benefits for the people of the region’1 by incorporation of VTE and Community College partners on the same site; then by extending the partnership to conceive of the Gosford and Wyong TAFE campuses as part of a set of three campuses forming an educational community precinct and building strong synergies between courses and credentials. This option was pursued against a proposal for a University College. The original campus visions was,

The main educational objective of the Ourimbah campus is to develop and implement a joint educational profile that extends opportunities to the region and maximises pathways between the sectors.2

Campus management is advised by an Advisory Board responsible to NSW DET and the University of Newcastle, comprising the Director of the Hunter Institute, the Vice- Chancellor of the University of Newcastle, the Pro Vice-Chancellor Central Coast Campuses and the Campus Manager (Wyong/Gosford) together with school, community, staff and student representatives, and the Community College and Central Coast Conservatorium of Music as observers. The Board was charged with advising on strategic directions and monitoring organisational and financial performance.

1 Ibid. 2 Memorandum of Understanding between University of Newcastle, TAFE NSW Hunter Institute and Central Coast Community College www.ccc.newcastle.edu.au/cccb/docs/MOU_1pdf

7 The Board’s vision was to turn Ourimbah into ‘a national leader in integrated training/education and research to meet the economic needs of the central coast.’3 At an educational level, the University and the TAFE are separate entities with separate teaching staff and each is responsible for its own credentials, but planning is undertaken jointly through information-sharing. Facilities, support staff and services are shared. The University employs all non-teaching staff and Hunter Institute is invoiced for its share of operating costs.

Multi-sector Pathways

The development of seamless pathways is one of the key policies and achievements of the campus, constructed on the basis of joint planning of programs and the development of articulation arrangements appropriate to the region. Multi-sector institutions or arrangements are seen to offer the capacity to expand areas of excellence, expand the servicing of local communities, and expand the capacity of higher education to interact with schools, technical and further education, and adult education. While some specific credit transfer agreements may be developed on site, it is the central agreements negotiated between Hunter Institute and the University of Newcastle that are the main basis for credit transfer applied at the campus. The Ourimbah website contains a link that takes users to this database (recently reviewed and updated).

Pathway options through joint program design was the responsibility of the Central Coast Pathways Committee, a Committee of the governing board comprising representatives of the three partner organisations with a remit to meet three or four times a year to identify and develop pathway options. A Pathways Officer was employed to undertake the development work and provide a focal point for these activities on the campus. The Committee was disbanded in 2004 and has been replaced with a “TAFE-University Credit Committee” now constituted by the University of Newcastle, TAFE NSW – Hunter Institute / North Coast Institute and New England Institute.

One early outcome was the development of a series of qualification pathway employment maps. These maps were created to assist the students of the campus and local careers advisors in understanding the study options available at the Ourimbah campus and how these could be developed from school through VTE and into higher education to support various careers. Some 40 different employment areas were identified and placed on the campus website. These have been updated following the University restructures and changes to national training packages.

An example of the pathway possibilities at Ourimbah that has been highly successful is in children’s services area where students may undertake the appropriate VTE in Schools course, apply the credit gained to a certificate III which is in turn embedded in a diploma, that then allows entry with credit (as per agreements) into a bachelor degree, all available on the one campus.

3 Ourimbah Strategic Plan 2002-2005. Available through www.ccc.newcastle.edu.au

8 A significant issue for both credit transfer and articulation is that most of the Ourimbah TAFE programs are at certificate III level or below, leaving gaps to support the pathways into the University’s courses. Information about the campus is provided on a special website via the University’s main web page (click on Ourimbah). Information is available about the pathways guides on the campus home page, and there are links to credit transfer arrangements, via: http://www.newcastle.edu.au or http://www.newcastle.edu.au/campus/ourimbah/

The immediate task for the campus is to consolidate the major changes introduced through the ‘change management program’ in 2005 and the TAFE NSW – Hunter Institute in 2006. This is a priority to provide a coherent and well-established platform for introducing further change and developing areas for short and long term expansion. The intent is to increase confidence about the future of the campus, to increase shared goals, and to redefine a sense of identity and pride about learning and teaching at Ourimbah.

The basis for this are the hopes and expectations of the staff, students and local communities including Strong and effective multi-sector experience for staff and students; Broad range of courses, with a select group of flagship programs; Positive relationship with students, and with colleagues on other campuses and across sectors; Constructive relationship with business, government and community partners; and Safe and harmonious workplace in a dynamic and growing campus. Central Coast communities expect and hope for the campus to: Provide access to a variety of education options and pathways; Be a feature and focal point of local community activities; Provide leadership in addressing policy and political issues; Reflect the differing needs and aspirations of Central Coast communities; and be a focal point for research, business links and cultural development.

The long-term task is to alter the educational landscape of the Central Coast. Long- term planning needs to consider a range of variables, some of which are known, some are yet to be revealed. There are impact key factors to leverage this change that are immediately identifiable and that will impact on the future opportunities for the Central Coast Campuses. Therefore, long-term planning needs to be clear-cut, but also able to adjust to changing circumstances.

Cross-Sectoral Issues Ripe for Research

It is often anecdotally reported that establishing curriculum articulation and ‘pathways’ are the hardest part of any cross-sectoral partnership, as there is so much territorial and financial advantage to be negotiated and potentially given up, even if to a ‘greater good’. However, our experience is that the hardest barrier or boundary to break through is that is student expectations, and therefore getting the pathways model mix right.

We have not had space in this paper to outline the various cross-sectoral models in NSW and other places in Australia, nor to list the advantages and disadvantages of each. Suffice it to say that there is no ‘on size fits all’ model, this locality, the nature of the partnership, the framework for systemic curriculum and community SES profile are key determinants of what shape each example has taken. None-the-less, it

9 is possible to list some common elements of cross-sectoral relationships that can inform a discussion about the problems and opportunities each case presents. The following issues are areas ripe for further research – and our discussion.

1) Ongoing commitment by all partners • individual partners have own priorities that take precedence • courses stretch over many years • changes in courses (HSC curriculum, training packages, University courses) are not synchronized • promises made to students commencing with one partner must be carried through • pathways need to be continually updated (not a one off decision) • recognition of other partners mission and reasons for being in the partnership

2) Government policy for pathways needs to be developed further • state versus federal organizations: need coherent policies • funding problems: o funding goes to individual partners who have own priorities o individual partners have tendency to retain funding in own sector • funding solutions: o recurrent funding for joint pathway not individual partners o funding given to overseeing body, e.g. community board or multi-sector management board • economic viability versus regional subsidisation

3) Focus on competencies/standards • secondary is well developed • TAFE linked to training packages • Universities very reticent to get involved • easy to identify overlap when competencies/standards are spelled out • allows automatic credit transfers (cf. USA college/university system)

REFLECTIONS Investing in the education and skills-base of Australia’s youth is a key strategy being employed to achieve the nation’s economic objective and political vision of becoming an advanced knowledge-based economy capable of competing in the global market. While the harnessing the talent and skills of young people in a way that advantages themselves, their community and the nation is a complex and difficult task, multi-sector institutions appear to be well-suited to provide better educated, more fruitfully employed and more highly skilled people. However, the policies and mechanisms to drive these initiatives have not always been compatible with existing practices (Crump, 1997b) and there is much to be learnt from practice, which is well-advanced in Australia.

Reforms in post-compulsory education over the last decade have shaped incentives that take students through education and/or training in a differently planned sequence of learning and assessment. We acknowledge that there is a chance that these new arrangements could falter, as they have taken a risk in facing a changed world openly and enthusiastically without clear and consistent policy guidelines or well-marked professional and organisational boundaries (or rule-breaking approvals). That is why research on VET in multi-sector contexts is so urgent and necessary. Australia is poised to lead the world in this direction, if only there can be the political and resource follow-through to support our innovative and brave colleagues.

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