The Victorian Government recognises the importance of incorporating the views of learners when developing education and training policy. Mechanisms such as student advisory panels, surveys, youth roundtables, and research play a crucial role in embedding the learner's voice into government decision-making.
Launched in 2024, the Senior Secondary Pathways Reform (SSPR) Student Advisory Panel is an advisory body comprised of secondary students in Year 10 to Year 12. The SSPR panel includes students from government, Catholic, and independent schools who are undertaking the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), VCE-Vocational Major, VCE-VET, and school-based apprenticeships and traineeships. It provides senior secondary students with the opportunity to share their perspectives directly with government to inform reforms aimed at improving the senior secondary experience.
The VSA is embedding the voice of learners in its work to strengthen Victoria’s skills system. It undertook a Young Persons Roundtable on Skills and Training in November 2023 that allowed a diverse group of young Victorians (aged 16 to 24) to share their lived experience in post-secondary education and identify areas for improvement in the training system. Young Victorians expressed the need for more collaboration in course design and delivery, as well as the challenges associated with navigating career and study decisions, particularly managing competing individual and community values.
The VSA is developing a Learner Engagement and Collaboration Strategy that formalises the role of learners in key decision-making in the skills system (along with those of industry and education and training providers).
In 2023, the VSA partnered with the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) to better understand learner pathways in VET, including through qualifications and accredited skill sets. The research found that the most common progression pathways were within the same training package with a few popular pathways between levels of education. For example, completers of a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care were likely to progress to a Diploma of Early Childhood and Care.
Research led by the Australasian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA) and funded by the VSA, identified strategies, tools and approaches to incorporate learner voice into vocational education design. The report identified key enablers, such as a nationally consistent framework for learner voice, and student-centric government digital gateways.
Other enablers include VET teachers co-designing learning materials with learners and providing opportunities for learners to address global and local challenges to prepare them for the future of work, including in sustainable industries.
The VSA’s industry roundtables informed government’s understanding of skills needs
In 2024, the VSA facilitated three industry roundtables on the digital economy, the care and health economy, and advanced manufacturing to better understand emerging skills needs in these industries.
Each industry roundtable discussed:
- ‘mega trends’ impacting industry or the economy more widely (such as climate change and AI)
- the emerging skills needs participants anticipate for their firms, sectors and the economy more broadly
- the skills that firms will demand in the future, including specific technical skills and those that are transferable across firms, industries and the broader economy
- how future skills are understood and categorised
- the education and training system and its preparedness to provide the skills required into the future.
The roundtables also included discussions on work placements and reducing the barriers to accessing placements, particularly in the care and health economy.
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