Standing Committee on Employment, Education
and Workplace Relations
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Submission 26
Emerald Agricultural College
23 October, 1997
RE: The Appropriate roles of Institutes of technical and further
education: and the extent to which these roles should overlap with universities.
Institutes of Technical and Further Education have their origins in the
middle of the last century, and were designed to extend the experience
of craftsman beyond that which the tradesman's employer was able to provide.
Training was in the areas of manipulative skills, or the theory needed
to explain why certain processes were employed in the workplace.
Universities have their origins in the middle ages, and had the task
of broadening the minds of their students. The capacity to think was regarded
as more important than the content of factual knowledge acquired. Thus,
while the Universities have long held a leading role in the training of
the professions, training for the work place was not the major role of
the university. Traditionally, university graduates have required a term
of internship before being accepted into the professions.
The increase in the general education level of the population, and the
need for "lifelong learning" to occur have changed the role
of both institutions.
While technical education was once the dominant form of education for
people at the post compulsory education age, increases in the ages at
which compulsory education ends and increases in the proportion of students
staying at school beyond the post compulsory age has increased the need
for institutes of technical and further education to offer a more generalised
education, and to expand their offering of Gore Skills beyond the traditional
work related offering. Such a change in emphasis needs to equip the student
for a lifetime of change and on going learning As the proportion of the
population attending university has grown, universities have been placed
under increased pressure to justify their existence. As a result, universities
have increasingly been measured by Emerald Agricultural College the proportion
of graduates acceptable for immediate employment, so that an increasingly
work related content is being included in their courses.
While the roles of the school, university and institute of technical
and further -education are increasingly being merged, l believe that it
is important that specific roles for each type of institution be retained.
Schools, institutes of technical and further education and universities
should have complementary rather that competitive roles.
Thus while it is desirable for articulation between courses offered in
each type of institution to be increased, l would consider it undesirable
for the traditional certificates and diplomas offered by institutes of
technical and further education to be absorbed completely into a university
course. l refer specifically to courses which are being designed so that
a one year certificate converts directly into a two year diploma which
can be converted to a three year degree.
I believe that it would be more desirable for courses offered at institutes
of technical and further education to have a general educational role,
a proportion of which might be recognised as contributing to a university
degree. Reciprocal arrangements would of course apply.
I hope you find these comments of some value,
Yours faithfully,
R J Fleming
Director
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