This report describes and analyses how the work activities undertaken by students while at school affect their post-school pathways into and between work and study. Increasingly, students are involved with workplaces while still at school. The three major ways in which this is happening (in order of extent of engagement) are through work…

Australia's innovation capacity is, in part, reliant on its teaching workforce--to teach and promote new technologies to industry. This pilot study examines how vocational education and training (VET) teachers, in particular TAFE (technical and further education) teachers, maintain the currency of their skills and knowledge base. It also explores…

Ensuring that people have the appropriate level of numeracy skills is particularly important in jobs which involve a risk to public safety and the environment. This research investigates the job-related numeracy requirements in the chemical spraying and handling operations of the horticulture, local government, outdoor recreation and warehousing…

This report explores the ways in which Indigenous Australians are learning through enterprise and small business development. It reveals that this learning will be more effective if it takes into account that Indigenous experience differs by location, with remote areas offering a significant challenge. Learning through Indigenous business is most…

A stocktake of issues and activities in vocational education and training in schools through the perspectives of the published literature and policy documentation between 1997 and 2003 is the subject of this report. It identifies progress made and concludes that vocational programs in schools are meeting expectations and have achieved a legitimate…

This study examines the linkages between vocational education and training (VET) and industry in China and Australia. It details each country's arrangements for the provision of industry advice to governments and discusses industry-specific programs and skill development activities, including apprenticeships. It notes how changes in the economic,…

The formal court system in Australia has long been criticised for its adversarial nature. As a result, there has been an increase in the use of alternative dispute resolution processes such as mediation. These are promoted as a means of increasing access to justice by disadvantaged groups and as an inexpensive way of solving legal or quasi-legal…

This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report "Literacy, Numeracy and Alternative Dispute Resolution," and is an added resource for further information. It contains the appendices: (1) Published statistics on mediation/alternative dispute resolution in Australian courts and tribunals over the period 2002 to 2003;…

It has long been accepted that adult literacy and numeracy is best taught and learned in real-life situations that relate to everyday needs. This means that opportunities for learning are everywhere, not just in formal learning situations. This report seeks to identify examples and principles of the successful integration of learning about adult…

Policy initiatives such as user choice and training packages have been significant contributors in the move towards a more industry-driven vocational education and training (VET) system. An important consequence of this shift has been greater pressure on industries to provide opportunities for training in the workplace, and a reclaiming of the…

This research had the following four inter-related purposes: (1) to identify and clarify the distinctions between learning styles, preferences and strategies of students, and their practical application to vocational education and training (VET) learning environments; (2) to identify the extent to which the VET sector takes account of preferred…

This document was produced by the author(s) based on their research for the Australian report, "Accommodating Learning Styles: Relevance and Good Practice in Vocational Education and Training," and contains three parts. Part 1, Research Methodology and Findings (Peter Smith and Jennifer Dalton), contains: (1) Research Questions; (2) Research…

This study analyses the role of traineeships in the transition from school to work using data from a sample of the cohort of young Australians who were in Year 9 in 1995. The sample has been surveyed each year from 1995 to 2002--corresponding to ages 14 through to 21--as part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth conducted by the…

This support document accompanies the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) report "From School to Work: The Role of Traineeships" (ED493902). It contains a comprehensive review of the literature referred to in that report and detailed descriptions and results of the econometric modeling upon which the findings are based. The…

New ways of thinking about how language, literacy and numeracy skills are taught has coincided with a fundamental policy change in the vocational education and training sector. A major development has been the integration of literacy, language and numeracy skills into vocational training. The complexity of the issues makes it important to gain a…