Last month, the Victorian Government released its Victorian Skills Plan. The Ai Group Centre for Education and Training contributed to the stakeholder through the Victorian Skills Authority’s Business Services and Manufacturing Industry consultation Reference Groups. The Skills Plan follows two major state reviews into the VET and TAFE sector (Macklin Review) and vocation and applied learning senior secondary pathways (Firth Review).
The Skills Plan contains data about the Victorian labour force and where jobs growth is expected to occur both in terms of location and what the occupations in demand will be. The Minister for Training and Skills and Higher Education said at the launch that the Plan will be the Government’s guide to aligning training funding to employment need.
There are eleven main actions of the Skills Plan:
- Strengthening VET in schools through providing regularly updated advice about occupations in demand.
- Enabling learners and workers to make informed skilling and career choices through the Skills and Jobs Centres and the Victorian Skills Gateway.
- Expanding opportunities and approaches for students to put theory into practice during their course through working with industry to reduce barriers to work placements, investigating the courses and occupations that are experiencing placement shortfalls and investigating simulated placements.
- Building foundation skills to enhance workforce participation by working with agencies to develop programs that support people moving into work, promoting partnerships between agencies and employers and by implementing a pre-accredited training framework for foundation skills.
- Bridging the gender gap by conducting an annual gender impact assessment of the implementation of the Skills Plan and working with agencies to address barriers and raise awareness.
- Building skills for the clean economy through embedding clean economy workforce priorities identified by the Clean Economy Workforce Skills and Jobs Taskforce into future plans.
- Developing innovative solutions to support future skills development through partnering with the TAFE network and as a priority focusing on digital skills needs.
- Aligning qualifications to support the development of transferable, industry-relevant knowledge and skills by working with national skills bodies and by developing local accredited micro-credentials and qualifications where needed
- Building the VET workforce to increase the number of qualified teachers, trainers and assessors including through the VET Development Centre to establish a professional development framework.
- Expanding reskilling and upskilling opportunities through supporting the development and funding of skill sets.
- Drive for higher skills and progression through education and training by piloting aspects of the revised Australian Qualifications Framework and identifying new and emerging skills to supplement existing qualifications.
