What does your state/territory understand by the terms:
- vocational learning and
- structured workplace learning

DETE (SA) Vocational Learning is defined as follows: "Through Vocational Learning, all students acquire a broad understanding of the world of work and develop a range of generic skills, competencies, understandings and attributes that are relevant to a wide range of work environments. Vocational Learning provides students with structured learning experiences in Key Competencies, Enterprise Education, Career Education, Community Based Learning and Workbased Learning. Through these experiences young people acquire skills that are critical to them becoming life-long learners."

DETE uses the MCEETYA definition of Structured Workplace Learning.

What initiatives/programs are being planned or implemented in your state/territory in vocational learning and structured workplace learning and in what years?

Throughout the period 1997-99 DETE schools were engaged in familiarising themselves with Vocational Learning in a variety of ways:

1. A comprehensive program to integrate the Key Competencies into teaching and learning in all schools was implemented. This involved: familiarisation programs for all school principals, production of a training pack for teachers, a comprehensive train-the-trainer program attended by approximately 1000 teachers, and a raft of small project grants to approximately 100 schools to assist them to further explore the Key Competencies in their own contexts.
2. Enterprise Education was trialed in six clusters of schools over a two year period. The clusters were funded to progress approaches to enterprise education and to share their findings with the system. The results of their work have helped to shaped the directions of DETE’s new Enterprise and Vocational Education team.
3. Each school district was provided with funding to explore approaches to Career Education, and to develop programs. A number of districts linked this activity to their work with the Key Competencies.
4. Each school district was also provided with funding [to supplement ASTF funding] to facilitate effective coordination of students into structured work placements.
5. The outcomes of the above mentioned initiatives, and of others, are being built upon by the work of the Enterprise and Vocational Team. This team has been created through direct government funding to address a range of issues in relation to the transition of students from school to work or to further education and training. Issues include: increasing student skill levels in generic work related competencies that are valued by business and industry; facilitating the provision of quality career education services by external providers; increasing the quality of Structured Workplace Learning opportunities; expanding the opportunities for Part-time New Apprenticeships for School Students; promoting and facilitating the involvement of business, industry and the wider community in the provision of Vocational Education in schools. The focus of the Enterprise and Vocational Team encompasses all year levels, although activity related to Structured Workplace Learning and VET courses is generally focussed on students in the post-compulsory years.
6. Vocational Learning outcomes are being explicitly identified in the new South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework. A key accountability feature will be the re-development of the Student Personal Portfolio that will, for the first time, provide students and teachers with the opportunity to articulate evidence of a student’s achievements in generic skills, competencies and attributes. Such articulation will require evidence to be drawn from a range of sources, including out-of-school experiences such as part-time work and community involvement.

What is the rationale for having vocational learning and structured workplace learning in the compulsory years?

DETE promotes Structured Workplace Learning as an integral part of VET courses that lead to or contribute to a qualification under the AQF, and as such is generally undertaken by students in the post-compulsory years. Therefore there is no stated rationale that promotes Structured Workplace Learning as having a role in the curriculum in the compulsory years. On the other hand, Vocational Learning is promoted as being relevant to all students in all years of schooling on the understanding that emphases and approaches used will vary depending on year level. The rationale for inclusion of Vocational Learning in the curriculum at the compulsory years are the National Goals of Schooling embodied in the so-called Adelaide Declaration. The relevant goals are 1,1, 1.5, 1.6, 2.4, 2.5 and especially goal 2.3.

How are the vocational learning initiatives/programs in the compulsory years linked to those in the post compulsory years?

The five aspects of vocational learning (Key Competencies, Enterprise Education, Career Education, Work based learning, and Community Based Learning) will be integrated into the new South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework which covers all year levels. Therefore the difference between Vocational Learning initiatives in the compulsory years and the post-compulsory years is in terms of sophistication and context. [The diagram on page 45 of the march 2000 MCEETYA VET in Schools Taskforce report effectively summarises this linkage.]

For example:

• in the middle years students might engage in career education activities as part of learning area studies, whereas in the post-compulsory years, although this may still happen, such activities will most likely be supplemented and strengthened by specific programs provided by external career guidance providers;
• through the Student Personal Portfolio, students will have by the end of their compulsory years, assembled a range of evidence to support their articulation of achievements in the Key Competencies and other generic skills and attributes. In the post-compulsory years it is likely that students will, as their preferred post-school pathways become clearer, refine this evidence or replace it by other evidence that better demonstrates the increasing sophistication of their achievements.

How might any issues identified in the middle years of schooling (see 3. above in Middle Years of Schooling) impact on vocational learning in Years 9 and 10? What are the curriculum implications?

See response to ‘Middle Years of Schooling’ question 3