Kirby Comes of Age

By Mark Cully

A timely and important contribution to the debate in Australia about the direction, funding and quality of skills development.

Two of the country's leading education and training organizations have called for a renewed national debate on Australia's skill needs and training policies.

The call by Group Training Australia (GTA) and the Dusseldorp Skills Forum (DSF) follows a roundtable of industry leaders and the release of a new report on the effectiveness and efficiency of Australia's traineeship program.

GTA and DSF commissioned Mark Cully of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research to prepare the report, which was debated at a national roundtable of industry leaders held earlier this year to discuss the future of traineeships.

The report finds

• In recent years the rate of commencements in traineeships has been phenomenal, and peaked at 238,000 in 2003

• Over the past decade, however, employment in the target occupations for traineeships grew at only about half the rate for management, professions and the trades. The bulk of trainees are in retail, hospitality and administrative jobs

• Growth in traineeships appears to be influenced by the reduced costs to employers through incentive payments, training wages and access to User Choice funds

• In 2004 at least $750M was paid by governments directly to employers to either hire or train Australian Apprentices, most of whom are trainees.

• About one-third of trainees are understood to be existing employees

• Further research is needed to be precise about the productivity gains from traineeships

• Since 1985, over 650,000 Australians have completed a traineeship.

The study points to significant departures from the original intent of the program:

• Young, pre-Year 12 school leavers now account for only one in eight of all newly commencing trainees

• Traineeships have moved away from a model of general, transferable skills that might be a stepping stone to higher skilled jobs towards a model where completion is an end-point.