Check against delivery
Good morning everyone.
It’s great to be here with you today, to provide the opening address and speak about how 2020 is the year of action in delivering the Government’s extensive improvement program for vocational education and training.
Having ministerial responsibility for VET and apprenticeships is something I cherish.
I started out as a sparkie many years ago, and I often ponder how that qualification and the wisdom of my teachers has supported and sustained me throughout my career.
My son Jarrad also began his working life as an apprentice so it’s been great to share with him some of the lessons I also learned on the football field about teamwork as the key to success on any of life’s playing fields.
It’s endlessly exciting for me to see education transforming lives and giving people the skills and capability to do their work well, to make good decisions, and then to be able to continue learning throughout their life.
So it’s a pleasure to come full circle now as Minister and work with so many people committed to helping young people to realise their potential through the gift of education, just as I received that gift during my apprenticeship as an electrician and on the football field.
Before I go further, I want to pause and make mention of the incredible work of our RFS and the determination of communities to rebuild after the devastating bushfires.
I also applaud all ITECA members for how you strengthen individual capability and local communities through the transformative power of skills training and education.
The work you undertake every day contributes to successful and responsive local and regional development.
Through your commitment to quality and innovation, you are also making a vital contribution to Australia’s economy and national wellbeing.
Training is an investment in the future that promotes optimism and builds resilience, encouraging the capacity to manage change and bounce back in challenging times.
This is especially relevant as we recover and rebuild from these bushfires and also the floods up north.
Some of you will have been directly affected or know someone who has been.
This is a difficult time for many people across the country.
We have established a ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Bushfire Recovery Agency funded with an initial $2 billion to work with the States and Territories to ensure families, farmers and business owners are supported.
There will be long-term challenges for many communities, including in training, education and workforce participation.
I know the local knowledge and networks of RTOs will be important in providing rebuilding and resilience measures tailored to local communities.
You will have a key role in supporting the rebuilding of homes, facilities and infrastructure by providing high-quality and responsive VET skills training for students, trainees and apprentices.
More broadly, as the nature of work in Australia changes, we need flexible and applied ways of learning, so Australian workers are ready for all the opportunities of today and tomorrow.
When I completed my qualification, it was a very different era in terms of how VET and apprenticeships were valued and delivered.
What I am seeing now is that businesses, providers and students recognise how work and careers are changing and are ready for and seeking sensible improvements to VET.
This means workers able to train and retrain as needed for changing opportunities; businesses can be confident they have a pipeline of skilled workers available so they can expand or innovate; and VET qualifications are appropriately recognised as having high value.
I think by now most of you will be aware of our ambitious but achievable $585 million package of improvements for the sector, called Delivering Skills for Today and Tomorrow.
Our approach recognises the importance of building on the current VET system, including the complementary capabilities of independent and government providers.
The ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Skills Commission is one of the flagship initiatives in the package, and through our national consultation process we have acted on your views on how it should work and the need for effective leadership in this area.
As an important first step we appointed Adam Boyton as the Interim ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Skills Commissioner.
The Commission will formally commence on 1 July when it will really start driving long-term improvements to the VET sector.
This will include undertaking research and analysis of future skills needs across industry to ensure government funding addresses national labour market priorities, including those arising from developing technologies.
What’s important is that the Commission complements and enhances the existing VET system, working to improve coordination, increase efficiency, and enable local and regional solutions.
As Interim Commissioner, Adam Boyton is already leading critical technical work to determine a robust evidence base for improvements to the Australian VET system, including reviewing the effectiveness of incentives to increase apprenticeship numbers.
He is also developing efficient pricing model options and preparing to forecast future skills demand.
Within the Delivering Skills for Today and Tomorrow package, our skills organisation pilots are an exciting new approach to effecting practical change in key industries, starting with human services care, digital technology and mining.
The first two skills organisation pilots, for the human services care and digital technology industries, commenced last December.
The initial phase of these pilots is being led by small steering groups that will undertake some projects and collaboration with industry on the development of a detailed design of a long-term model for the pilots.
As part of the detailed design, each steering group will consider a diversity of views across industry sectors, geographic locations and small to medium sized business.
These Skills Organisations pilots provide a crucial opportunity for you as providers and everyone in these industries to trial new ways of working, while looking for opportunities to make sure training is tailored to the needs of employers and the economy as a whole.
To give you an idea of why we are starting with these sectors, demand for care-related occupations is expected to increase by over 100,000 jobs in the next five years alone.
We can all see that digital technologies are essential to Australia’s economy, with demand for ICT professionals and telecommunications technicians projected to increase by an additional 71,000 workers by 2024.
And as many of you may know, mining accounted for one fifth of Australia’s GDP growth in 2018, employing more than a quarter of a million people, with many of those employees located in regional, rural and remote communities.
We are collaborating with the Minerals Council of Australia on early industry engagement as we establish this Skills Organisation pilot.
The third major initiative of the Skills Package is the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Careers Institute which was established on 1 July last year.
And what it will be doing is ensuring Australians have access to high quality career information and support.
Regardless of age or stage, navigating career, education and training decisions can be complex and the wealth of competing information can often make it harder to understand and compare options.
