Higher Education in Australian Vocational Institutions - Emerging Forms of Provision in Universal Higher Education Systems

Globally, labour market demand for highly skilled workers is soaring as knowledge-work becomes essential for innovation, economic diversification and growth while equity of access to tertiary education is increasingly of concern. While bachelor degrees from universities continue to be the most common tertiary award, a major new global development in the field of higher education (HE) is emerging to meet this pressing demand for skills. Vocational institutions (VIs; non-university HE institutions such as Australian TAFE Institutes that specialise in providing qualifications for occupations) are increasingly offering bachelor degrees (OECD 2015; Trow 2006), thereby expanding employment opportunities for new types of learners. To date. little has been written about this phenomena in the context of Australia since the study by Wheelehan, Moodie, Billett and Kelly (2009); This book is designed to address this gap by exploring research that investigates the distinctive meaning of ‘higher’ vocational qualifications (i.e. undergraduate degrees obtained through VIs) for students and employers and their effects on students’ tertiary opportunities and vocational outcomes.

11 Technical and Further Education Institutes (TAFEs) in Australia are now providing over 100 qualifications across a small range of sectors related to occupations and industry. This provision of a few subjects at higher education level in these primarily vocationally oriented institutions suggests the ‘Oli-Technics’ moniker. The development of these new kinds of tertiary providers addresses the strong argument made by Bradley (2008) that a new era of expanded providers will be more equitable. Some twelve years on, there is still a paucity of research to support this claim and inform policy in this emerging new approach to tertiary provision.

This book reports on a three year Australian Research Council project which aims to redress this research gap by identifying and understanding the effect on social equity of the expansion of vocational institutions as providers of undergraduate degrees, particularly in terms of broadening opportunities for new types of students and their vocational outcomes at a crucial moment when HE is seen as the key driver to increase national productivity and raise the economic participation of disadvantaged equity groups.

Through a qualitative cross-case analysis of all the 11 Australian TAFEs who have provided their own higher education, the book explores the effects of these novel degrees. Further, whether the provision of Bachelor degrees in institutions with vocational heritages enables the higher education system to respond to the global drivers for social and economic restructuring through expanding Bachelor degree offerings in new types of non-university providers. For tertiary institutions, education organisations and governments it provides an exploration of a disruptive form of higher education which hopes to create opportunities for a diverse range of learners with subjects not offered in traditional university higher education institutions. By analysing the new degree offerings, and the backgrounds and experiences of the students that choose these degrees, the book presents a reflection on the opportunity for the higher education system to better drive national innovation and economic restructuring in ways that gives a fairer chance to all equity groups to participate.

The authorship team brings together policy sociology analysts and vocational and adult education specialists with expertise in the application of the work of Bourdieu and Bernstein, two theorist who have analysed at the system and the curriculum level the ways in which education has contributed to the reproduction of social inequalities. In bringing together these conceptual ideas, the book provides a theoretical frame and understanding of the specialist field, the vocational education and training sector and the institutions to ensure the research design can address the problem of how to expand higher education in more equitable ways and also ensure that the implications of the findings are translatable into institutional, state and national settings. The main benefits of the work include firstly, that policy makers and institutional leaders will have a better idea of how best to develop and expand non-university higher education in the vocational sector in order to address global and national priorities for greater equity and relevance in higher education. Secondly, educational practitioners will have a greater understanding of the contexts in which students make choices about degree offerings and how best to support students through a higher education in vocational institutions pathway. And thirdly, researchers in this expanding area of policy and practice interest will be able to consider and apply the conceptual and theoretical research frameworks and in their own contexts, such as in Australia or in many other countries (including Canada and the USA, the UK, Europe, and China).