The Chair of Jobs and Skills Australia wants to “rebalance” tertiary education “because skills are the lingua franca of prospective employers not qualifications, not credentials.”
Professor Glover, a former VC of Western Sydney U, expanded on the Universities Accord case for a “more connected” post school system in a National Press Club speech last week calling for change “to reduce the discrepancy between where students are studying now and the job requirements of the future.”
And the discrepancy has long weighed against training. In 2021, Professor Glover said, there were 5.5 million Australians with a Bachelor degree (a 31% increase on 2016) compared to 4 million with Certificate I through IV (11% up).
Professor Glover, a member of Mary O’Kane’s Accord team, set out present and future needs for more voc-ed skilled workers, suggesting the present target of 80% of the working age population with tertiary skills by 2050 may be an understatement. “We certainly need to better understand the spread and blend of skills and qualifications across the VET and HE spectrum.”
But the challenge to accomplish it, he particularly pointed to, is a culture-shift in communities.
“We must uplift the aspirations of young people to consider career options across the full tertiary spectrum. I’ll be blunt, we need to raise enthusiasm – in numbers too big to ignore – for vocational education and training from deep within our school system.”
