Accommodating the needs of mature para-professionals
TAFE NSW VET Pedagogy Project 2006 managed by Lynne Stallard, ICVET
Have we got a course for you!' doesn't cut the mustard any longer with industry – training is often just seen as a cost. The consequences of this kind of thinking are very evident: several engineering courses for para-professionals have already closed. If TAFE is going to gain credibility in the crucial area of competitive manufacturing, it needs to become immersed in the local and international marketplace.
Kevin Clayton
Summary
- TAFE should, but doesn’t, cater to the needs of experienced technical people
- To accommodate the needs and preferred learning styles of this group, TAFE needs to display greater flexibility in a range of areas, including curricula, delivery modes, class sizes, and approaches to industry
Teacher stance
Looking freshly at accommodating the needs of experienced people in technical areas
Background
I’ve been a Head Teacher in mechanical and manufacturing engineering, but my current role involves developing courses at para-professional level in engineering areas. I spend a lot of time talking with people involved in engineering education and in industry about course provision.
A major issue for me is the way TAFE caters to areas of need and demand outside the mainstream. While we have plenty of takers for apprenticeship courses, I think the real challenge for TAFE is to cater to thin markets.
For example, you might have someone managing maintenance at a hospital who wants to further their skills in ‘maintenance management’. Or perhaps someone is running a sewerage treatment plant, or you've got a few experienced maintenance contractors.
Accommodation barriers
There are a number of things that get in the way of accommodating the needs of people like these. One is that unless you have 15 mates with similar training needs, we can't provide for him.
Another difficulty is that our course content is not very suited to their needs. Despite various course reviews, which have led to the introduction of some new material, the base content of our para-professional courses has not changed much since the 1970s.
And even when reviews identify important changes that are required, various circumstances - such as time limits and wanting to avoid change - mean that ultimately, not much changes. You end up with material which doesn't meet the needs of mature para-professionals like the hospital maintenance manager I referred to earlier.
Accommodating experienced technical people
To meet the needs of experienced people, you need to cover a range of technical areas which cross over traditional demarcations such as mechanical and electrical skills. You also need material designed for more flexibility. Please understand that I'm NOT advocating fully self-paced, modularised training where everyone progresses at their own pace. That's been tried elsewhere, and it has problems - there's too little personal contact and feedback. In some cases, the end result is a high failure rate.
So let me outline what I am picturing in order to accommodate the needs of mature para-professionals.
Firstly, you’d need to go through the curriculum, and sort out how each topic needs to be delivered. There would no doubt be a core which everyone needs to do, and then a range of support resources.
In a lot of cases, you don't need to come on campus to do a topic. For example, for a particular electronic topic, you might be able to go down to your local electronics store, buy the components you need, and put them together to satisfy the assessment criteria. Or can we, as an institution, provide the bits they need in a box which students can borrow or rent? There would be guidance notes and checklists in the box, so you wouldn't need someone to personally supervise each task. Students would end up being able to make better use of their time on campus to use equipment not available elsewhere.
Secondly, even though the para-professionals I'm thinking of are likely to be capable of self-directed learning, there’s a limit to that. If you leave them alone for any length of time, we'd be lucky to get 20% through. So you need milestones, to bring them together periodically, and see how they're going.
Thirdly, as an aid to self-direction and review, it's important that the course is built up of packaged tasks - small, achievable chunks of learning and associated assessment which are achievable in a short time, such as a week.
Fourthly, any group of mature-aged and experienced learners is likely to contain people with a wide range of knowledge and experiences. You need to provide opportunities for them to demonstrate what they know, and to integrate their learning. For that reason, it's important to include some whole projects or functional areas for them to work on. For example, a project might involve taking some of the self-contained packaged tasks, combining and applying them. In the process, they extend their knowledge and skill.
Fifthly, despite a sudden upsurge in the availability of computers in TAFE, the computer skills of teachers haven't kept pace. This is a problem whether we're talking about apprentices or mature-aged learners. If we're going to meet the needs of para-professionals, there is a pressing need for training for teachers so they can take full advantage of computers.
And finally, a much better validation process for course content is needed. My impression is that the standards of our students, in areas like mathematics, is dropping; and there's not nearly enough liaison between teachers to make sure everyone is working to a common standard. We, as a teaching staff, should be getting together at the end of each year to review what we're doing and to make detailed plans for improvements the following year.
Maintaining a lively relationship with industry
I want to underline one crucial part of the validation process - networking with industry. If we're going to help experienced people upskill in areas where industry is reporting great skill shortages, direct contact between people involved in the curriculum design and teaching, and a range of industry representatives, is crucial. At the moment, there's too little of this kind of thing: it's not well handled. And frankly, it's not easy to do.
Industry will only network with us if there is a return to their bottom line. In the crucial area of competitive manufacturing, TAFE is currently trying to get runs on the board, partly so that we can get access to industry. If TAFE is going to gain credibility, it needs to become immersed in the marketplace (not only the local marketplace, but the regional and international marketplace as well).
‘Have we got a course for you !’ doesn't cut the mustard any longer with industry - training is often just seen as a cost. The consequences of this kind of thinking are very evident: several engineering courses for para-professionals have already closed, and others are on the brink.
However, if we can get TAFE staff to develop an understanding of business improvement, then we're much more likely to be viewed as valuable network members. And of course, that would benefit out students as well as us. It would mean 'business improvement' becomes a much more visible part of the curriculum, which would increase its value to our students.
