This document discusses a study examining whether Australia's vocational education and training system is adequately preparing metal engineering workers for jobs in advanced manufacturing and innovation. Preliminary findings suggest key advanced manufacturing stakeholders value capabilities over discrete skills, posing a challenge for competency-based training. The study aims to identify attributes and capabilities required of engineering tradespeople to maintain relevance amid Industry 4.0. While analysis is ongoing, the challenges of aligning vocational education with future skills needs are discussed.
Dr Karen O'Reilly Briggs -Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering Trades and Innovation: Understanding Skills Needs for Jobs of the Future
1. Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering Trades and
Innovation: Understanding Skills Needs for Jobs of the
Future
Dr Karen O’Reilly-Briggs
La Trobe University, Melbourne
2. Dr Mike Brown
Dr Karen O’Reilly-Briggs
Professor Terri Seddon
Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering Trades and Innovation:
Understanding Skills Needs for Jobs of the Future
3. Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering Trades and Innovation:
Understanding Skills Needs for Jobs of the Future
From industry to teaching trades … … to University and conferences at
Parliament house!
5. Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering Trades and Innovation:
Understanding Skills Needs for Jobs of the Future
Fast forward 30 years …
So what were the consequences of sidelining trade
teachers from informing curriculum and pedagogy?
6. -+
‘Thinning’ or ‘erosion’ of engineering trade apprenticeship skills and
knowledge over the past three decades.
8. -+We need …
‘… a highly capable and adaptable workforce’ (Siekmann &
Fowler, 2017)
But there is …
‘… growing concern that apprentices are achieving a much lower
level of skill than … industry needs’ (Productivity Commission,
2017)
Further that …
‘…lower-level skills [make] Australians vulnerable to global
competition (Productivity Commission, 2017).
Skilled trade roles will remain important to manufacturing, but the
workforce will also need …
‘STEM skills [and] non-technical skills including leadership,
management and entrepreneurial skills and the ability to be
adaptable, network, communicate and negotiate’. (Willox, 2014).
9. -+Manufacturing Skills Australia state that
Skill needs are changing and people who can adapt,
problem solve, think creatively, and work across
traditional skill boundaries are needed … [P]riorities …
include innovation/design skills, multi-skilled, broad-
based capabilities, IT digital skills and higher-level
interpersonal/organisational skills (MSA, 2015, p. 4).
10. -+Disturbingly …
At the threshold of Industry 4.0―the technology and innovation
industrial revolution―we are only beginning to notice a profound
shift taking place. The magnitude of this industrial revolution,
according to the founder and executive chairman of the World
Economic Forum is unlike anything that humankind has
experienced, and in terms of human history, there has never been a
time of greater promise or potential peril (Schwab, 2016, p. 2).
Reinforcing …
‘Technological change has been linked to inequality … which in
turn may result in social unrest [leading] to economic decline and a
decrease in social cohesion (Roos, 2017).
11. -+Business Council of Australia
…this transition is one of the most important moments
in history that will make or break the potential of this
nation (BCA, 2017).
12. -+
The literature tells us that we are in the midst of an industrial
revolution and we are in urgent need of a highly skilled
workforce with greater skills and capabilities than in the past,
that is capable of resourcing industry and stabilising the
national economy. If we can’t achieve this, there is potential
for greater levels of inequality, economic decline and social
unrest.
To summarise
14. Is Australia’s Vocational Education
and Training system able to meet
the changing needs of industry?
15. What attributes and capabilities will
be/are required of metal engineering
workers to resource advanced
manufacturing industries and the
innovation economy?
16. About the study
This study was designed to take initial steps to help address the significant
challenge of aligning vocational education and training (VET) provision with the
‘future ready’ skills needed by engineering tradespeople to maintain relevance
in the shift to Industry 4.0 and advanced manufacturing within the Innovation
economy.
17. About the study
This study is a pilot study – it is relatively small scale. Its intention has always
been to determine whether a larger scale, nation wide, study is warranted.
Seed funding received from the Engagement Income Growth Scheme, La
Trobe University
To date:
•We have interviewed ‘key players’ in the advanced manufacturing industry
•Analysis is still underway
•Some preliminary findings
18. Preliminary findings show that key players in advanced manufacturing
are wanting particular attributes and capabilities more so than discrete
skills.
This will pose a dilemma for the VET sector.
CBT is not widely regarded by educators as suitable for producing the
qualities and capabilities being described by industry leaders in
manufacturing.
About the study
20. The study is still in progress and a report is expected early next year.
About the study
Launch of the Advanced Welder centre Box Hill Institute, Melbourne 2018
22. -+References
BCA. (2017) Future-proof: protecting Australia through education and skills. Business Council of Australia
Beddie, F., Hargreaves, J., & Atkinson, G. (2017). Evolution not revolution: views on training products reform. Adelaide: NCVER
MSA. (2015). Manufacturing advancing the conversation: MSA environmental scan 2015: Manufacturing Skills Australia
O’Reilly-Briggs, K. (2016). National training reform and the impact on vocational education for engineering trades in Victoria. Melbourne: La Trobe
University
Productivity Commission. (2017) Shifting the dial: 5 year productivity review, inquiry report no. 84. Canberra
Roos, G. (2017). Technology-driven productivity improvements and the future of work: emerging research and opportunities. USA: IGI Global.
Schwab, K. (2016). The fourth industrial revolution: World Economic Forum.
Siekmann, G. & Fowler, C. (2017). Identifying work skills: international approaches. Adelaide: NCVER
Toner, P. (2018a). How economics explains failure of the publicly funded privately delivered training market. University of Melbourne
Toner, P. (2018b). A tale of mandarins and lemons: creating the market for vocational education and training. In Wrong way: how privatisation & economic
reform backfired (Eds: Cahill, D., & Toner, P.) Melbourne: La Trobe University Press
Wheelahan, L. (2013). The future of Australian vocational education qualifications depends on a new social settlement. Journal of Education and Work.
28:2 pp. 126-146, DOI: 10.1080/13639080.2014.1001333
Willox (2014). Advanced manufacturing: a smarter approach for Australia. In Advanced manufacturing: beyond the production line. Melbourne: Committee
for Economic Development
World Economic Forum. (2016) executive summary. The future of jobs: employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution.
Switzerland
Notas del editor
This presentation will present preliminary findings of a recent study that is being conducted by Dr Mike Brown, Professor Terri Seddon and myself. The questions this study seeks to answer emerged out of concern expressed by many – including governments, employers, industry leaders, researchers and teaching experts – that Australia’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector may not be up to the task of producing workers with the types of skills, capabilities and attributes required to resource industry, including advanced manufacturing and other engineering trade dependent industries of the future.
This study is dear to my heart for a number of reasons that I will mention before we start.
Although I am now employed by La Trobe University, and lecture, coordinate programs and research in the School of Education, I am a bit of an anomaly in the world of academia. Unlike the majority of my colleagues, I did not attend University from secondary school. Instead I took an engineering trade apprenticeship and qualified as a metal fabricator and welder in the early 1990s. Some call the trade Boilermaking. As a tradesperson I worked for many firms and in many areas including ship building, construction, maintenance and many other areas. I worked in my trade full time for almost 20 years before moving into teaching. I tell you this because I love my trade and I still take great pride in calling myself a tradesperson. I want to communicate this firstly because I like people to know that I have first hand knowledge of what I am talking about. I have lived the trade, I have lived the teaching of my trade in the VET sector. It is this history that has fueled my ongoing interest in trades and education, and it is my mission in life to use this knowledge to improve trade and vocational education and to see that trades continue to be viable and valued as vocations into the future.
So why do I say this?
In 2016 I completed a PhD study that investigated the quality of engineering trade vocational education since the time of National Training Reform in Australia- the start of the 1990s. What I was trying to capture in this study were experienced and long-serving teacher perceptions of how their trades, and the teaching and learning of their trades had changed as a consequence of a series of policy changes made to the sector. One of the things that I found particularly curious was that despite the years, often decades of experience and expertise of trade teachers at the time, the reform process was designed and implemented in such a way as to unapologetically sideline these teachers from the reform process, and dismiss any concerns they had regarding pedagogy, the craft concept, and the process in general of educating apprentices to graduation. In my opinion, this is completely illogical. After all, what other industry endeavours to move forward and improve quality by dismissing its experts?
What I later learned was the logic behind this move was to reposition ‘industry’ at the helm of the VET sector, and a concern that teacher input might de-rail this intention. In a nutshell, trade teachers were or at least felt as though their knowledge and experience was not valued, and that they were now little more than servants to governments, industry leaders and other bureaucratic overseers.
So what were the consequences of sidelining trade teachers from informing curriculum and pedagogy?
My PhD study set out to identify how engineering trades, including the teaching and learning of these trades and vocations have been affected over the past 30 years or so. To do this, I set out to interview approx. 60 highly experienced engineering trade teachers- many of whom were teaching their trade to apprentices in TAFE at the time of NTR at the beginning of the 1990s.
I won’t go into detail about the study here, but the findings were definitive and quite revealing as to how the changes in the sector have impacted the teaching and learning of trade apprenticeship...
This graphic summarises what took me 150,000 words to explain in my PhD research, which is that there has been significant thinning and an erosion of the quality and content of engineering trade apprenticeship skills and knowledge over the past three decades.
In other words, those graduating as tradespeople today, have only a fraction of the skills, knowledge and capabilities of engineering tradespeople prior to NTR. One engineering trade teacher summed this up by telling me that apprentices graduating today have approximately the same level of knowledge that he had, in the 1960s, as a first year apprentice. The trajectory is clear – the Australian VET system, through a combination of many things over many years, including marketisation, competency-based pedagogies, regulations and funding dependency, have culminated to produce a deeply flawed system (Toner, 2018) that is incongruent to the production of highly skilled tradespeople. The intention of this talk is not to dwell on this point. Events that have lead to the poor reputation and diminished state of Australia’s VET system are widely understood now. No doubt many others in this conference will be lamenting its demise and questioning its fitness for purpose.
There’s a word for this in the world of consumerism: ‘shrinkification’. ‘Shrinkificaiton’ describes the act of reducing the size or diminishing the content of a product and selling it at the same price to maximise profit. A bit like buying a carton of milk, taking it home just to find half the content missing.
(click)
The product appeared to be one thing on the shelf, but on closer inspection, turned out to be quite another. In many ways the same has been happening to the quality and quantity of trade vocational education here in Australia: it gives the appearance of being one thing, but the content (i.e. skills, knowledge, capabilities and know-how) of trade graduates has reduced quite significantly over time. When employers hire, say, a mechanical fitter and machinist, there is no guarantee that the tradesperson they hire will have the skills, knowledge or capabilities that they might expect or assume them to have. This is problematic both for the employer and tradesperson. The employer may lose productivity, and the tradesperson, with their limited pallet of skills and knowledge, has reduced capacity to secure employment and a livelihood.
The reason I raise this whole issue of ‘Shrinkificaiton’, or reduced educational content, is because this finding, weighed against what I have been reading about Industry 4.0, the Innovation economy, Advanced manufacturing, and literature from experts, has started to sound alarm bells for me.
Let me explain with a few quotes from literature …
On the one hand we have industry groups, governments and experts telling us that we need …
‘… a highly capable and adaptable workforce’ (Siekmann & Fowler, 2017)
(click)
But there is …
‘… growing concern that apprentices are achieving a much lower level of skill than … industry needs’ (Productivity Commission, 2017).
(click)
Further, that…
‘…lower-level skills [make] Australians vulnerable to global competition (Productivity Commission, 2017).
(click)
Also that Skilled trade roles will remain important … but the Manufacturing workforce will also need …
‘STEM skills [and] non-technical skills including leadership, management [,] entrepreneurial skills and the ability to be adaptable, network, communicate and negotiate’. (Willox, 2014).
And Manufacturing Skills Australia tell us that
…[we need] people who can adapt, problem solve, think creatively, and work across traditional skill boundaries…
Priorities … include innovation/design skills, multi-skilled, broad-based capabilities, IT digital skills and higher-level interpersonal/organisational skills (MSA, 2015, p. 4).
And disturbingly …
At the threshold of Industry 4.0―the technology and innovation industrial revolution―we are only beginning to notice a profound shift taking place. The magnitude of this industrial revolution, according to the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, is unlike anything that humankind has experienced, and in terms of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril (Schwab, 2016, p. 2).
(click)
Reinforcing Roos:
‘Technological change has been linked to inequality … which in turn may result in social unrest [leading] to economic decline and a decrease in social cohesion (Roos, 2017). (Professor Nils Göran Arne Roos - Swedish academic, technologist, author and businessman.)
The Business Council of Australia tell us that
…this transition is one of the most important moments in history that will make or break the potential of this nation.
I get the feeling we are being warned!
To summarise:
The literature tells us that we are in the midst of an industrial revolution and we are in urgent need of a highly skilled workforce with greater skills and capabilities than in the past that is capable of resourcing industry and stabilising the national economy. If we can’t achieve this, there is potential for greater levels of inequality, economic decline and social unrest.
So this is the conundrum …
On the one hand we have a training system that research tells us is eroding the depth and breadth of trade skills and knowledge, effectively narrowing apprenticeship and the capability of tradespeople graduating form the sector…
And on the other hand, there is a looming economic and social crisis if the sector is not capable of lifting its game to meet higher skill and capability needs.
Which has led me to ask a number of questions including …
Is Australia’s Vocational Education and Training system able to meet the changing requirements of industry?
And, in an effort to focus the study …
What attributes and capabilities will be/are required of metal engineering workers to resource advanced manufacturing industries and the innovation economy?
I will explain a little about the study…
This study was designed to take initial steps to help address the significant challenge of aligning vocational education and training (VET) provision with the ‘future ready’ skills needed by engineering tradespeople to maintain relevance in the shift to Industry 4.0 and advanced manufacturing within the Innovation economy.
Its intention has been to investigate the skills and capability requirements of the manufacturing-engineering workforce of the future from the perspective of advanced manufacturing peak industry bodies (i.e. key players in Industry 4.0 and the Innovation economy). With this perspective we can begin to gauge the adequacy or inadequacy of the Australian VET sector to generate engineering tradespeople with the ‘future ready’ capabilities and attributes needed to resource industry and the economy.
As a pilot study – it is relatively small scale. Its intention has always been to determine whether a larger, nation wide, study is warranted.
To date:
We have interviewed ‘key players’ in the advanced manufacturing industry
Analysis is still underway
Some preliminary findings
Preliminary findings show that key players in advanced manufacturing are wanting particular attributes and capabilities more so than discrete skills. Although we set out to identify skill needs, it has become apparent that that it is more so attributes, and advanced thinking and problem solving capabilities, that key players emphasise much more so than discrete technical skills.
Arguably, this will pose a dilemma for the VET sector as CBT curriculum is more suited to the teaching and learning of discrete and observable skills. It is less suited to the development of capabilities such as ‘creativity’, and ‘problem solving’ and ‘innovation’.
CBT is not widely regarded as suitable or appropriate pedagogy for producing the qualities and capabilities being described here.
For example: The current curriculum and Competency based pedagogy is unlikely to produce Engineering tradespeople who are also ‘designers’, ‘innovators’ and ‘entrepreneurs working across skill boundaries’ with ‘broad-based capabilities’ and ‘higher-level interpersonal and organisational skills’.
Creating the envisaged workforce of the future poses a major challenge to the Australian VET sector because (as discussed earlier) it was designed and set up for 20th Century Industry, and in such a way as to give outside authorities control over curriculum and pedagogy.
Given that the current VET sector was designed for 20th Century industry, and the fact that we are now in the midst of an industrial revolution, The scale of change needed is likely to challenge the current authority base, and authorities must be prepared to relinquish control to the experts – such as expert tradespeople and expert trade teachers.
Consequently, many educators and researchers are now calling for the (re)professionalization of the trade and VET teaching workforce. Although they are sometimes called ‘teachers’, it has been approximately 30 years since trade teachers required a higher degree to teach their trade. Instead they now only require a certificate IV in workplace training and assessment – and just to be clear, this not a teaching degree.
Professionally educated trade teachers are highly knowledgeable and capable, but are not given the opportunity to be their best as they are restricted by Training Packages, Competency-Based Training, funding models and quality-regime agendas. As my colleague Dr Mike Brown says, ‘our trade teachers are like V8s running on four cylinders’ – because the sector is so heavily regulated, restrictive and fragmented, and founded in such low levels of trust (Wheelahan, 2013), it does not permit them to be their best.
Some recent publications I have read seem to suggest that the VET sector is just in need of some tweaking to fix the problems before it (Beddie, Hargreaves & Atkinson, 2017). Based on my readings and research, I do not agree with this, and I suspect that the there may be a level of denial and/or even ignorance at play – an inconvenient truth - that underestimates the magnitude of the challenge ahead.
May be it is time to practice what is being preached regarding the Innovation Economy - – and that is to be innovative! We need to reimagine the VET sector and (dare I say) return trust to its teachers.
Anyway … just to finish up, I’d like to say the study is still in progress and a report is expected early next year.
Which brings me to the end of the presentation.
