When the love of your life says goodbye...

A couple of years ago I was mandatorily ‘retired’ (age-related retrenchment is a better term) from my regular employment. I left that job with mixed emotions. At the time I felt a bit peeved, as one would knowing that one's capability is related to one's age, but I also felt relieved because it gave me more time to study and reflect on my first passion, vocational education and training (VET).

I became involved in what was then called workplace training in the mid 1970s. My first train-the-trainer course was known as the Methods of Instructional Training (MIT). It was run by someone who in later life became one of our Governor’s General (Peter Cosgrove), and was then, and in my opinion still is today, the best introductory course for trainers – bar none. It covered everything a new trainer needed to know, and provided the basis for ongoing self- and professional-development in the field of adult and technical education.

Since that time I have graduated through every level of workplace trainer. From trainer, to supervisor of trainers, to manager of a training department and later a training company, to owning my own training consultancy, and later as a lecturer on VET at university. From there I became involved in the development and implementation overseas of national frameworks for VET and writing highest level policy and doctrine on the subject.

I thought with this background I might have something to contribute to the industry in my later years, but it appears that this is not the case. Despite all of the effort put into creating one of the world’s best VET systems it seems that anything I have to say is easily drowned out by others with far less authority to speak on the subject than I – or many other people for that matter.

You see, VET in this country today is an embarrassment. Especially for those of us who fought so hard to take the best of what was being done elsewhere and mold it into a system that was for many years the envy of other nations. We were the second country in the world to have a fully functioning, effective and resource efficient VET system – one that not only worked but had representatives from other countries coming here to find out why we were so successful.

I speak regularly with others who made up the teams responsible for introducing these processes into this country, and while we reminisce on the times when we were having such an impact, we also sigh and lament allowing the education fraternity to take over control of the training reform agenda.

Today we see the results of this. What we see is akin to a country where the government has decreed that mechanics are no longer allowed to service and maintain motor vehicle engines - this is now the job of the passengers. Not the drivers who at least know where the motor vehicle should be heading, but the passenger who is just there for the ride.

Taking control of the training reform out of the hands of those who actually know both what reform is required and how it might best be achieved is the worst thing the government could ever do. Every day there are more and more cries for help from trainers and assessors who do not understand VET. They don’t understand its purpose, the elements which go to make up an effective VET sector, or the means for achieving the business and strategic objectives of such a system. They do not know these things because they have never been taught them, and they have never been taught them because, for most part, they are not understood by the regulators and those who now control the agenda.

The result is that, as we see every day in the media, employers are unable to find staff to fill the positions which lay empty for lack of confident, competent and capable employees. There is a never ending tsunami of complaints against those who regulate VET, and complaints by the regulators about what it considers are non-compliant trainers and training organisations – despite the fact that many of them possess highly capable staff who employers would love to enlist if only the regulations allowed them to.

It has been 25 years since the National Training Board released its policies and procedures for competency-based training, but still we have trainers and assessors throwing their hands up in the air crying that they don’t understand what it is they are trying to do. We see a never-ending struggle with assessors and their clients trying to understand RPL – recognition of prior learning, the simplest form of assessment anyone can undertake. They don’t understand it, so they make the rules up and then wonder why people seeking assessment complain that it is too hard, or too expensive, or takes too much time.

Assessment, and in particular RPL, is none of these. The only reason why there are concerns about assessment is because people are doing it wrongly. The standards developed for assessors are so far off the mark that it is no wonder that practitioners the country over don’t know what they’re doing.. And the guidelines for RPL are so badly constructed that they may as well be describing cake making or spot welding. Clearly those who provide the guidance have not one clue about the subject, yet they are free to go on and train others in these self-same bad practices. What is worse is that those who peddle the nonsense that they call training packages for trainers and assessors demonstrate with every iteration that their idea of competency-based assessment is about as close to reality as chalk is to cheese. How they were ever given the job in the first place is beyond me. How they get to keep their job has got to be very close to criminal.

For those who feel slighted at my words, I am sorry but I am not going to apologise if it appears that I am being hard on the profession that I once defended with all my might. I loved performing the function of assessor because it pleased me to see the glow in people’s faces when they realised that they knew far more than they thought, that all their lives had been a learning journey, and so too will be the remaining days of whatever career they pursue.

It tickled me to my bones when I was able to present someone with a certificate or qualification for which they did not have to undertake one day’s training or education to achieve. And it cost them far less than they would have had to pay had they done the full training course.

I had employers tell me that what I have brought them was the only speck of gold they have found in the ocean of gravel they’re usually presented, or for the first time middle and senior management were able to achieve business and strategic objectives set for them.

I have been brought to tears by parents who cried with gratitude that we had been able to find meaningful employment for their children whose future appeared at first to be lost to the ranks of the unemployed. We have received applause from communities that discovered new means for generating an income while regions all around them sank into economic despair.

Those who saw my Insources presentation the other week would have learned that the processes we designed in the 90s brought life back to people who had previously felt unworthy, at a loss, or lacking in direction and purpose. The models we created enabled people to seamlessly move on to newer and better careers when their previous employers closed their doors, to place them ahead of other candidates in the jobs market, and to rise head and shoulders above other candidates for scarce jobs in their industry.

We had union representatives and employers shaking our hands thankful that we were able to bring everyone together in the achievement of common goals. We had communities that for the first time could see a future for their young people and help avoid them moving to the cities were they had a greater chance of finding employment.

We gave people opportunities to make new lives for themselves, a new belief that their gender, level of education, or physical capability was no longer a barrier to achieving their goals in life. These were the outcomes we achieved through the simple, uncomplicated and straight-forward processes of competency-based assessment.

Can any of these be achieved today? Clearly not. Is there an appetite to get these processes right? There does not appear to be.

From what I hear day after day is that people are quite content to continue to struggle with the existing processes, all the while maintaining a belief that what they are doing is the only way of doing it. They are wrong, and I have offered time and again to show them a better way.

Several times I have offered free courses to people interested in learning how to properly conduct competency-based assessment and, by extension, provide an RPL service that actually achieves real outcomes. But it appears that folk are happier to pay good money to learn how not to do things than learn for free how to do them properly. Stupid me.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I am going to cease my ranting about VET and assessment, and quietly move on. I am not really saying goodbye to the sector in as much as it bid me farewell a long time ago, only I didn't realise it.

One day there might be a light bulb moment when people understand that the path they had been following has been full of false promises, and that the self-professed gurus really weren’t all that sure of the subject about which they often spoke. Hopefully at that time there will be somebody around who actually knows what they’re talking about and able to advise them on how to conduct assessments that achieve real outcomes. In the meantime ....

Good luck all. I am off to tend to the garden bed and get over myself.