Jason Clare announces “harmonising” higher education and VET is a government objective with the Education Minister announcing “next steps to deliver a joined up tertiary education system.”
A Tertiary System Advisory Council, was announced by the Education Minister yesterday to “help drive this work” – adding yet another regulatory body to drive sector change. The yet-to-be-legislated Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) is charged with producing a plan with the Council.
Mr Clare nominated specific objectives for the Council yesterday, “we need to crack the code of credit transfer and recognition of prior learning,” he said.
Mr Clare billed this as a response to Jobs and Skills Australia’s February report on addressing policy-obstacles that stop open access between the sectors, notably the absence of common qualification and skills frameworks, no national credit transfer and the mass of unconnected regulations.
This is a big win for JSA chief Barney Glover, who will chair the tertiary system council, in addition to his interim ATEC role.
However, the ATEC, the core creation of the Universities Accord inquiry is charged with the work, indicating independent universities will take more wrangling than the giant public training systems.
The Productivity Commission recommends national systems for credit transfer and recognising prior learning and calls for a national database so students “better understand” tertiary education pathways, “making decisions about the allocation of credit more transparent and providers more accountable.”
The Council’s first job will be to produce a tertiary harmonisation roadmap. The Minister would do well to commission a tertiary regulation roadmap to guide an increasingly congested compliance agenda at the same time.