Is higher education vocational?
30 September 2010, by Tom Karmel
Some years ago I wrote a paper titled 'Is VET vocational?' It looked at the match between the courses VET students undertook and their subsequent jobs. I concluded that apart from the traditional trades and a couple of other courses, the match was poor. I argued that much of VET needs to be thought of as general education, if with a vocational orientation. The recent, albeit short lived, announcement of the Gillard ministry, with the minister for post-school education having the title 'Jobs, skills and workplace relations' - and no mention of education- prompted me to pose the question of whether higher education is becoming more vocational.
