Inquiry into the Role of Institutes of TAFE
Submissions

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Submission 67.1

CURTIN University of Technology Western Australia

PMB 22
Kalgoorlie 6430
Western Australia

Fax (08) 9088 6100

Telephone (08) 9088 6000

17^th February 1998

Re: Additional submission by witness on 18th February 98 at WAAPA Overlap between Sectors

We've found that our customers - students are called customers in the VET Sector- customers who have completed a specialist degree in one discipline after a few years at work frequently turn to TAFE for a management or business related qualification like say, the Certificate in Supervision as a kind of post graduate qualification. These customers are typically in their early thirties. They don't care much whether they complete their TAFE qualification as long as they acquire the skills they want. This pattern is also common where a generalist degree like a BA or a BSc doesn't provide an employment advantage in the labour market and the customer seeks a set of specific skills in a TAFE award. In these situations, there is little overlap between the degree and the TAFE award.

A customer who is unable to complete a degree, can often obtain significant numbers of exemptions and may be able to complete a TAFE award and so be able to salvage something.

Many of our TAFE customers who had abandoned their higher education ambitions because of a too low TER score but who were successful at TAFE, can now gain entry to higher education study. For them, TAFE becomes an alternative pathway to higher education. They may be pleased with gaining their Diploma but because of their unfulfilled ambition, continue with studies towards a Degree. We also find in this category, customers who ceased their studies before Year 12, have gained a -TAFE award and now would like to continue with higher education. These customers are usually in their early twenties and are more interested in the qualification as a symbol of status than the skills learnt.

In our experience, students who qualify for entry to higher education studies, generally, do not initially enrol in TAFE. We see much value in making the articulation arrangements between TAFE and Higher Education more transparent, more predictable and less arbitrary in terms of exemptions / cross credits.

Cross Enrolment

There is a good deal of cross enrolment between the sectors. Customers do move back and forth, they do bits and pieces of qualifications feeding and grazing on what appeals to them at a particular time in a fragmented spontaneous manner. in daysgone by, the conventional notion was that students would aim to reach the highest possible level in one particular field of study, and that the highest qualification subsumes all others. The conventional wisdom in articulation was seen as the need to broaden upward mobility paths to Higher Education, especially for young people. But that is not how in practice people choose to behave.

Although the upward mobility paths are well defined in many areas and Curtin Business School's articulation path is a model to emulate, these vertical pathways are little used and have a largely symbolic value, as much as to say: The pathway is open, please enter.

By contrast to vertical pathways, the horizontal movement between the Sectors is extensive. Movement from Higher Education to TAFE is more common than movement the other way. Much of the movement is between courses that are unrelated, though combining them can make good sense. Thus customers often move from humanities in Higher Education to business or computing courses in TAFE. Our customers are more interested in the skills than the qualification.

The older the customers, the less interest they have and the less motivated they seem to be in acquiring testamurs. They are not concerned about not completing TAFE awards. Older customers use their access to education and training to find new careers or simply to assist them in changing the direction of their lives. TAFE awards in themselves are not valued very highly.

It is not true in TAFE that a customer who has say, a Diploma in Hospitality Management could be thought to be as competent in cookery as one with a lower qualification of Certificate 2 in Cookery (Commercial) and automatically get the "lower" award. Nor can it be assumed that the knowledge and skills gained in a TAFE course are necessarily subsumed in a well constructed Higher Education course up the line or that having a Higher Education qualification will give exemptions in a TAFE course in the same area.

The current situation where there is a drop of demand for entry to Higher Education -may provide a window of opportunity to design a more soundly based system of articulation between TAFE and Higher Education. There is now a stronger need to facilitate non-school leaver entry. In TAFE there is a desire to negotiate articulation -of courses into Higher Education and Curtin as a multi-sectoral institution in WA is in an excellent position to lead the way.

Michal Kowalik

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