Lifelong Learning: Demand and supply issues - some questions for research

Paper presented at
The Business/Higher Education Roundtable Conference on

The Critical Importance of Lifelong Learning

Michael Gallagher
First Assistant Secretary, Higher Education Division
Department of Education, Training & Youth Affairs

Sydney, 24 July 2001

© Commonwealth of Australia 2000

Contents

• 1. Meaning and purposes in the lifelong learning agenda

• 2. Participation and attainment

  • Questions about participation and attainment

• 3. Demand-side considerations

  • Demand generated from individuals

  • Demand generated from employers

  • Demand generated by product suppliers

    • Questions about demand

• 4. Supply-side considerations

  • Higher education and performative learning

  • Questions about supply

  Attachment A

  References

  Footnotes

The focus of this paper is on learning beyond schooling for the working age population. Its purpose is to raise some questions for research on higher education linkages with changing labour market requirements. It has four parts. The first part briefly discusses meanings and purposes of the lifelong learning agenda. The second part outlines current patterns of Australian educational participation and attainment. The third part considers issues associated with developments in demand. The fourth part considers issues associated with developments in supply and their interactions with demand.

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1. Meanings and purposes in the lifelong learning agenda

International interest in lifelong education can be seen to derive from the following main drivers:

• structural changes in the sectoral composition of national economic growth, displacing workers from various industries/occupations who need new skills/opportunities for redeployment;
• changes in markets for Australian goods and services, requiring new organisational structures, processes and skill sets;
• the centrality of knowledge to social and economic progress, its transforming impact on the processes of current activities and its generation of new possibilities;
• the unpredictability and rapidity of change demanding new learning and renewal of competence and the need to avoid marginalisation and inequality for individuals;
• continuous change in the knowledge intensity of work, the now essential need for literacy and thinking (reflective competence) in most jobs and the application of new information and communication technologies requiring organisational change and skills upgrading for both enterprise productivity and employee earnings;
• demographic shifts compelling both sounder grounding of new labour market entrants, skills upgrading of current workers and more active (less dependent) ageing; and
• the need for a functioning democracy where citizens are being called on to take or sanction complex decisions.

The OECD (1998) identified the following distinctive features of a policy framework for lifelong learning: (a) centrality of learner needs as the demand-side driver; (b) emphasis on self-directed learning, including learning to learn; (c) acknowledgment that learning occurs in informal as well as formal settings; and (d) a long term view that takes account of an individual’s lifetime aspirations and experiences.

These features are seen to have implications for key policy parameters, including:

the determination of objectives; the structure of provision; the content, quality and relevance of provision; resourcing and management; and the roles and responsibilities of different partners and stakeholders.

An earlier report (OECD, 1994) noted that most of the increased demand for learning has been channelled into greater participation in initial tertiary education "despite an evident need for a balance between learning in youth and later life", and emphasised demand pulls on the structure of supply:

Policy strategies to promote learning beyond schooling are less straightforward than was the introduction of publicly-financed school systems a century ago.

The pattern of learning at this level is beyond the direct control of governments, not just because they lack the resources to finance education and training on a lifelong basis but because learning patterns are determined by a complex array of influences ranging from company attitudes to in-service training to local cultural attitudes to informal study. Rather than being determined by planned institutional ‘provision’, education and training activity is influenced by the interplay between supply and demand, with individuals responding to services offered at local, national or international level.

The respective responsibilities of individuals, employers and governments in this domain are not clear cut. However, public policy arguably ought to focus on developing a coherent framework for enabling lifelong learning, including:

• a sound qualifications system;
• effective foundation learning in early childhood, schooling and initial tertiary education;
• encouraging provider diversity and responsiveness to meet varying needs and circumstances;
• assuring quality;
• providing access to information; and
• interventions to remove barriers to learning for those people in disadvantaged circumstances.

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2. Participation and attainment

The proportion of the Australian population with degree level qualifications has almost trebled over the last twenty years from 5.8 percent in 1982 to 15.7 percent in 2000. Over the same period, the proportion without post-school qualifications or who have not completed the highest year of secondary schooling has fallen from 53.4 percent to 32.0 percent. The proportion of the population with post-school qualifications at less than degree level has remained relatively stable at around 26-30 percent [1].

In the early 1980s, less than 40 percent of those starting secondary schooling entered its final year, some 40 percent of 15-19 year olds were in full-time employment and some 16 percent of 19 year olds were undertaking higher education. At the end of the 1990s, over 70 percent of those starting secondary schooling entered its final year, some 17 percent of 15-19 year olds were in full-time employment and some 26 percent of 19 year olds were undertaking higher education.

A young Australian today has something approaching a 90 percent chance of undertaking post-secondary education at some point in his or her lifetime. Increases in participation have led to rising levels of educational attainment in the population as a whole. There has been a marked rise in the proportion of young people undertaking a full secondary education. The apparent retention rate rose steeply over the 1980s and early 1990s, peaking during the recession in 1992 at 77.1 percent. It subsequently fell to around 72 percent by 1995 and has since remained at this level.

Participation in the VET sector has increased from 8.2 percent of the 15-64 year old population in 1985, to 13.2 percent in 2000. In addition to delivering initial post-school training for the young, the VET sector has traditionally provided both ‘second chance’ and on-going training for older Australians.

The proportion of people aged 25 and over among VET students has risen from 48 percent in 1988 to over 60 percent by 2000. Participation in VET by teenagers has remained stable over the last two decades.

In 1995, some 20.5 percent of 15-19 year olds participated in VET. In 1999, the participation rate of this age group was 23 percent. In 1998, New Apprenticeships subsumed the former apprenticeship and traineeship arrangements under a single more flexible system of contracts of training.

The numbers of new apprentices in training reached some 303,000 in June 1999 (or 2.8 percent of the labour force) – an historic high for contracts of training. The introduction of New Apprenticeships has changed the nature of contracts of training. There is now a wider range of programmes, with growth in both the shorter term programmes previously known as traineeships and the longer, more traditional apprenticeships. Part-time training opportunities are available as is the undertaking of a new apprenticeship in school. The range of industries and occupations covered by contracts has widened and so has the age range; with continued growth for young people but with some 39% percent of New Apprentices aged 25 or over as at March 2001.

Participation in higher education increased rapidly over the 1980s and 1990s. For example, participation among 20-24 year olds rose from around 9 percent in the early 1980s to some 15 percent at the end of the 1990s.

A young person today has a probability of about 45 percent of entering higher education at some point in his or her life, and a 35 percent chance of entering by age 25.[2] Rates of participation in higher education have been higher for females than for males over the last two decades across all age groups.

Over the 1990s it appears that participation in work related training courses[3] has remained relatively stable. The proportion of wage and salary earners undertaking such training has varied between 47.0 percent (1993) and 53.5 percent (1997) in the training surveys undertaken by the ABS in 1993 and 1997 (see ABS, 1998).

The incidence of participation in on-the-job training is higher with slightly over 70 percent of wage and salary earners involved in such training in the previous 12 months. Both the incidence and the nature of participation in education and training changes as people age. This can be clearly seen from Figure 1 below which presents age specific participation rates for formal education (defined as courses leading to the award of a recognised qualification), formal training (defined as structured training which does not lead to the award of a recognised qualification) and on-the job training.[4]

Figure 1

Source: ABS Survey of Education and Training, Cat. No. 6278.0

Participation in formal education (which includes school, VET and university study) is concentrated primarily between the ages of 5 and 25, though many people continue it at older ages, albeit at generally lower intensity. By contrast, patterns of participation in structured and on the job training relate largely to employment. Participation in both these forms of training is relatively low among teenagers (reflecting lower rates of labour force participation).

Participation in on-the-job training peaks at age 20-24 (the age at which many people enter full-time employment) and then declines with age. Structured training (which is primarily related to employment and financed by employers) represents the predominant form of formal training for individuals aged 25 and over. Participation in structured training remains reasonably stable between the ages of 25 and 50 but declines sharply from the age of 50.

While the incidence of on-the-job training and structured training is quite high over much of working age, these forms of training generally involve relatively small amounts of time. The average time spent by participants in work related training courses in the 12 months prior to a 1997 ABS survey was 26 hours (ABS, 1998). Formal education by contrast often involves full-time participation over a semester or a full-year for participants, although the VET sector provides part-time study for the vast majority (over 90% in 2000) of participants. Thus, while individuals continue to participate in various forms of education or training activity over their lifetimes, the bulk of the education and training which they undertake is likely to have taken place by the age of 25-30.

Of those factors other than age which influence participation in education and training by adults, prior educational attainment is the most important. A consistent and strong relationship between current participation and prior attainment is found in both Australian and overseas studies.

Using data from ABS surveys of education and training, Rousell found that the probability of participating in all forms of education and training in Australia increased with rising educational attainment (Rousell, 2000).

Participation in education and training also varies in both amount and kind among occupation groups and across industry sectors by size of firm. Table 1 shows the percentage by occupation group undertaking different forms of education and training in the 12 months to March-May 1997:

Education and Training of Employed Persons in the 12 months to March-May 1997, Australia, by Occupation (1 digit ASCO second edition) – percent of occupation group. ABS.

Rousell reports lower rates of participation in education and training for workers in lower-level occupations and those earning lower incomes. Lower participation in formal training was found to be more likely among employees of smaller firms because of the higher costs of providing in-house training through lack of scale economies and the difficulty of substituting for workers doing off-the-job training (Rousell, 2000). Table 2 at Attachment A shows the distribution of occupations by employer size, May 1998.

Occupation skill levels I and II (some 2.5 million persons) represent 34% of all occupations. Their participation in some form of education and training is upwards of 80%. Skill levels III and IV (some 3.4 million persons) represent 45% of all occupations. Their participation in some education and training is around 75%. Skill level V employees (some 1.5 million persons) represent 21% of all occupations.

Their participation in some education and training is around 60%. Whereas employer-supported external training ranges from 10% (associate professionals) to 30% (professionals) for skill levels I & II, employer support ranges only from 2% (labourers and related workers) to 8% for Skill levels III through V. Self-supported external training is highest for professionals (14%) and lowest for labourers and related workers (4%).

More broadly, O’Connell, 1999, reports a number of common findings across several OECD member countries in respect of education and training participation:

• In all countries employed adults are more likely to participate in continuing education or training than the unemployed, who in turn have higher rates of participation than those not economically active;
• The incidence of participation in job-related training is substantially higher than that in education and training undertaken for personal interest and other reasons;
• There are no substantial gender differences in participation in education and training. However, when men participate in job-related training they are more likely to receive financial sponsorship from their employers than women;
• Adults who already possess higher level educational qualifications are a great deal more likely than those with lower educational attainments to participate in education or training, and when they do so the duration of their training is longer. Current patterns of education and training are thus likely to exacerbate rather than mitigate labour market inequalities and processes of social exclusion;
• Younger adults are more likely to participate in continuing education or training. The training undertaken by younger adults is of longer duration than among older age groups, intensifying age-related discrepancies in education and training;
• Those working in large firms and organisations are more likely than those working in small organisations to participate in continuing education or training;
• Employers are by far the most common financial sponsors of training, particularly of job-related training. Where employers do not sponsor training, for example in small firms, employees themselves are more likely to finance their own training.

Reflecting on such outcomes the OECD 1999 commented:

Since a key distinguishing feature of high-training economies is that participation in training is more evenly distributed, policies enhancing the incentives and resources for investing in the continuing training of workers typically receiving little training are of particular importance.

However, the theoretical and empirical analysis of the determinants and consequences of continuing training are not yet sufficiently developed to provide policy makers with reliable estimates of the economic returns that would accrue to specific policy approaches.

Participation rates and educational attainment levels by themselves do not necessarily indicate that the education and training system is meeting the needs of the labour market and the economy. Imbalances between supply and demand should normally show up in shifts in unemployment rates and/or relative wages. However, some masking of over supply may be possible as more highly educated persons move (through credentialism) into occupations that do not necessarily require or make use of higher skill levels and at the expense of less qualified current or potential workers.

Andrews and Tarchalski report that the labour market has absorbed the dramatic increase in the supply of workers with tertiary qualifications over the last two decades without substantial change in the relative earnings of workers with such qualifications (Andrews and Tarchalski, 2000). The shift in demand towards skilled labour has been matched by an equivalent shift in labour supply, leaving the structure of relative unemployment rates across skill groups fairly stable (Vickery, 1999).

Andrews and Wu did find, however, a widening of the occupational destinations of graduates, with graduates gaining employment in relatively lower paid occupations and some overall decline in graduate starting salaries relative to the general workforce (Andrews and Wu, 1998). Some shortages of supply have occurred from time to time, such as currently in some areas of information technology.

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Questions about participation and attainment:

Teichler (1999) poses the following questions:

• To what extent does continuing education really take place over many life stages?
• What differences, if any, can we find among the motivations and performance of people who defer their studies, interrupt their studies, take second-chance opportunities, return to advanced study, participate in continuing education?
• Who services which fields of continuing professional education? To what extent do strong professions arrange their own continuing education? To what extent do universities or other providers fill a gap where a strong professional need for continuing education is felt, substantial money is available but professionals are not sufficiently independent to serve for themselves?
• What are the impacts of relatively segmented and what of relatively integrated approaches to teaching and learning of adults in higher education?

Additionally, we may ask:

• How well does education and training provision meet labour market skill requirements?
• How effective are education and training experiences in developing lifetime learning skills?
• To what extent, if any, does any over-supply of more highly educated labour flow into occupations for which there is less of a need for higher skills and displace current and potential workers who have lower qualifications? What are the costs and benefits of such developments?
• What use is made of the skills of tertiary qualified graduates in their jobs?
• What gives rise to skill shortages in particular fields and what are the best options for addressing them?

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3. Demand-side considerations

Four demand categories can be identified: social aspirations; individuals; employers; and product suppliers. The interests across the categories are not necessarily congruent.

Aspirational demand of a society and its leadership can generate changes in individual, employer and provider expectations and behaviours. To the extent that the aspirations are not adequately in touch with basic imperatives, they can also generate frustration and cynicism. Much of the lifelong learning agenda post Delors (1996) appears somewhat elusive, especially when predicated on assumptions of universality. However, they challenge the complacency and insularity of traditional education provision and give rise to debate about broader alternatives, necessarily engaging education interest groups with others concerned about children’s health and active ageing, social welfare and superannuation, immigration and cultural cohesion, industry development and innovation, trade and foreign investment. Policies in these fields are broadening to include policies for learning, not necessarily through formal education systems.

Social trends also give rise to changing expectations. The ageing of the population is an illustration. McDonald and Kippen (1999) note that demographic pyramids are long past and we now have to work busily on population policy to construct a ‘beehive’ or confront a ‘coffin’ future. Discussion here focuses on the economic dependency ratio or labourforce dependency ratio of non-workers to workers. Labourforce participation for those aged over 55 has declined significantly over the past two decades through the retrenchment of older workers and incentives for early retirement. Yet many people in the 55- 64 and the 65-74 age groups are personally active and socially contributive. Policy is being directed to re-engaging older workers and encouraging active ageing. McDonald and Kippen make the case for revaluing older workers:

For some workers, major retraining will be required but for most, gradual adaptation to change through learning on the job should be adequate. This direction would be facilitated by a lifelong approach to learning. There will be a need to change the existing negative attitudes of many employers to older workers. Older workers must be seen as valuable. This means a shift in the psychology of employers one the one hand but also a shift among older workers in the way they see themselves. Flexible work-retirement transitions will be required so that older workers, where appropriate, are able to lessen their level of responsibility and their pay level without incurring penalties to their retirement income entitlements. There may need to be incentives for employers to redeploy rather than retrench older workers.

A companion paper by Taylor, Laplagne and deLaine (1999) concluded that "greater educational attainment of the adult population has the potential to alleviate the economic burden imposed by non-workers on workers". However, after various simulations, the authors found no justification for switching resources from younger people to older people. To the contrary they concluded:

The low skill/low training gap emphasises the importance in an ageing population of enhancing the quality of primary and secondary education as the basis for future investments in learning and of ensuring universal access by young people to education in order to limit the numbers requiring safety net assistance later in life.

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Demand generated from individuals

Four broad purposes for individuals seeking access to continuing education and training may be identified: for entry-level employment; for change of occupation; for upskilling within an occupation or industry; and for personal development or lifestyle change.

Market research conducted for ANTA ,2000, provides some insights into varying individual perceptions of and motivations for continuing education and training. The survey found people generally valued formal and informal learning and cited personal (non-vocational) reasons (45%), job-related reasons (30%) and qualification-only reasons (15%) for having engaged in learning. The consultants identified and profiled 8 segments:

• Learning leaders (21%) – people who value learning per se and are likely to learn in the future
• Learn to earn (17%) – people who only value learning related to jobs and qualifications and are likely to learn in the future
• Might Give It Away (7%) – the segment that least values learning but intends (at least for now) to learn in the future
• Almost There (6%) – those who see barriers to learning but nevertheless intend to learn in the future
• Been There/Done That (11%) – people who value learning per se but are less likely to learn in the future
• Only if YOU Make It Easier (16%) – those who see barriers to learning and are less likely to learn in the future
• I’m Done With It (14%) – people who only value learning related to jobs and qualifications and are less likely to learn in the future
• Forget It (8%) – the segment that least value learning and is less likely to learn in the future.

In overall terms the study reported about a quarter of the community say nothing could get them to learn; almost a quarter say ‘products’ are the issue ( qualifications, structure and length of learning, amount of work, learning method); almost a quarter say ‘position’ is the issue (job prospects through learning, job relevance of learning, time involved, balance of workload, convenience); and the remaining quarter say it is to do with ‘personal’, ‘price’ or ‘promotion’ issues.

By way of comparison, the ABS, 1997, reported main reasons for not undertaking formal study or training in the previous year. The main reasons for not undertaking study were ‘no need’ (41%), followed by ‘too much work (15%), ‘no time (12%), ‘lack of interest/motivation (8%), ‘caring for family’ (8%), and ‘little difference to work’ (4%). The main reasons for not training were ‘no need’ (48%), ‘too much work’ (9%), ‘no time (8%), ‘little difference to work prospects’ (7%), caring for family (7%) and ‘lack of interest/motivation’ (4%).

Demand barriers account for some 60% of reasons for not studying and 65% for not training. Similarly, 47% indicated that ‘nothing’ would have enabled or encouraged them to study (54% for training). Interestingly, 14% for study and 13% for training indicated they would have been encouraged by ‘improvement in work prospects/if required for job or employer’, suggesting a substantial proportion of non-learners would respond to changes in the labour market value of education or training (see, Borthwick, Roussel & Briant, 2001.).

The likelihood of participation in formal education falls below 10% beyond age 35 (see Figure 1). To an extent it is rational for individuals to concentrate formal post-school study in the late teens and early adulthood.

Economically, the costs (particularly the opportunity costs) of participation increase with age and the potential benefits remain stable or decline (especially once ages close to the potential age of retirement are reached).

• Opportunity costs (particularly in the form of foregone income, foregone time which could be used for other activities such as leisure or family activity) generally rise with age over the period of working life.
• The benefits are likely to decline, first, as the time available to realise benefits (remaining working life) declines with increasing age and, secondly, because any additional study is likely to represent a smaller quantum relative to the amount of study already undertaken for older than younger individuals (other things being equal, an older person is likely to have completed longer durations of study than a younger one).

There can also be particular needs and anxieties for those who do participate in education as adults. Brookfield (forthcoming) outlines from the research literature a range of distinctive characteristics of adult learning, both cognitive and affective.

Four observable adult learning cognitive capacities are identified; the capacity to think dialectically (balancing the universal and the specific, and the subjective and objective); the capacity to employ practical logic (extending Piaget’s formal operations to ‘post-formal operations’ through reasoning experientially, contextually and inferentially); the capacity to know how we know what we know (metacognition or ‘learning to learn’ through becoming self aware of learning styles and being able to adjust them to varying circumstances); and critical reflection (a search for meaning through reappraising assumptions, beliefs and values developed through childhood and adolescence against realities of life experience).

On the affective dimension, Brookfield draws rather colourfully on adult students’ accounts of their learning experiences to identify both negative and positive concerns and consequences which are informative for pedagogy. On the negative side are ‘impostorship’, ‘cultural suicide’, ‘incremental fluctuation’ and ‘lost innocence’. On the positive side, apart from impacts on self worth, liberation and empowerment, the outstanding factor is that of ‘community’. Impostorship refers to a deep sense that adults (especially those new to further education) report about their lack of authenticity, talent and right to become ‘students’, and their fear that if they criticise published authors or other ‘experts’ they will be found inadequate. Cultural suicide is the price of marginalisation paid for criticising the common assumptions and stepping out beyond the behavioural norms of the community from which the adult learner has come and derived support. Incremental fluctuation is that process of learning through two steps back and one forward, which can cause despondence in periods of apparent regression. Lost innocence is both a Blakeian and Eliotesque phenomenon: the failure of study to reveal universal certainty and "the agonising grief of colluding in the death of someone he knows was himself" (More, 1974). On the positive side, the peer learning community can be emotionally sustaining, ‘a second family’, ‘my partners in crime’ through helping adult students tolerate periods of confusion and apparent regression more readily by sharing their common experiences.

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Demand generated from employers

The market segmentation studies commissioned by ANTA, March 2000, pointed to three segments within the employer population surveyed:

1. Not Interested (19%) – these employers believe in qualifications – especially for recruiting new employees – but that most other training is a waste of time and money… unless it convincingly increases productivity and reduces cost (mostly smaller businesses).
2. Here and Now (37%) – these employers are focused on keeping ahead of the competition. Dealing with new technologies and high turnover, they value on-the-job training. They don’t have much interest in learning that is not directly productive in the workplace. (includes an over-representation of large established businesses).
3. High Valuers (44%) – these employers value all forms of learning – on an off the job, work-related or not. Learning is the way they deal with the challenges of globalisation, competition and new technology. But they also value the productivity and efficiency benefits of learning. (Includes an over-representation of medium-sized businesses).

Small business employers (< 20 employees) made up 44% of the survey sample but 69% of the Not Interested segment. This result is consistent with practice. More than 57% of small businesses actually provided training (both structured and unstructured) in the previous year and 43% did not (ABS 1997). Only 18% of small business employers report some training expenditure, compared with 79% of employers with 20 – 99 employees and 97% of employers with > 100 employees. "Thus it appears that 82% of small business which accounts for over 50% of private sector employment does not spend any money on training" (Gibbs,1997). Explanations for this result are given by Roussel (2000) as discussed above.

The ABS survey of employer training practices (ABS 1997) indicates that in the 12 months to February 1997, 61% of employers provided training for their employees. While 35% of employers provided structured training such as training courses and workshops, 53% provided unstructured on-the-job training. Of the employers providing training, 43% provided only unstructured training. Structured training was provided by 94% of large employers, 71% of medium-sized employers and 30% of small employers.

Most employers who provided unstructured training considered that "showing how to perform a task on-the-job" applied to employees with either high or low skill levels. However, this was more frequently reported as ‘crucial’ for lower skilled (45%) than for higher skilled (39%) employees. By contrast, more employers considered that unstructured training provided through "employees acquiring knowledge/skills relevant to performing a job through reading manuals, journals, visual aids or training notes" or through "group discussion" applied to employees with higher skill levels.

Of those providing structured training, external providers were used by over 80% of employers in all industries except Communication services (69%) and transport & Storage (77%). TAFE was the predominant external provider (43%) followed by private training providers, professional associations (27%), equipment manufacturers (23%), industry associations (20%) and universities (14%). Private training providers were used most frequently in government administration and defence, finance and insurance and mining.

More than half of employers who used an external training provider selected the one they used most often because the content of the course was suitable. The majority of employers, and especially smaller employers who used TAFE or university most often, did so because the course was accredited. Employers who used professional associations or private providers did so because of course content suitability.

Only 13% of employers using external training providers reported they were given the opportunity to tailor courses to meet their own needs, ranging from 30% for those using private providers, 6% for TAFE, 3% for professional associations , with no report for universities. Two thirds of employers who used private training providers did so because of the flexibility offered – location and timing of course was suitable, and the employer had the opportunity to tailor course to own needs. Just over half found industry and professional associations to offer flexibility compared with one quarter for TAFE. Universities were found to offer flexibility by one third of large employers using external providers.

The ABS survey asked employers to give reasons for not providing structured training. Generally the employers indicated that the skills of their current (55%) and recently engaged (16%) staff were adequate. Time constraints (25%), cost (24%) and lack of convenient external training provision (19%) were also identified as factors.

Reporting on UK studies, Keep (2000) outlines a range of barriers to effective employer demand for ‘lifelong learning’ as frequently reflected in rhetoric, including:

factors such as stock market and investor pressures to realise short-term shareholder value and maximise profits; product market strategies that are built around the delivery of a narrow range of relatively standardised goods and services, and around price leadership; and the continuing existence of large swathes of employment where low trust, low involvement styles of people management co-exist with Taylorised forms of work organisation and job design where there is little room for genuine discretion, reflection, innovation or learning for those on the shopfloor/frontline…together with recent changes in the structure and direction of training provision in many organisations, such as devolution of responsibility for training to line managers and shifts towards the provision of training on a ‘just-in-time/just enough’ basis are tending to make learning opportunities more and more geared to the immediate task.

Keep queries the assumption that skills are the only sustainable source of competitive advantage for organisations, noting mergers and buy outs can be viable routes to success. He also challenges the view that the skills of the whole workforce are the starting point for competitive strategies, noting that "the strategic management concept of core organisational competence does emphasise the role of skills and capabilities as providing a unique source of competitive advantage, but these may be held by a relatively small proportion of the workforce rather than the majority".

Keep reports that "many employers perceive clear disadvantages in training those of their workers in lower occupational groups, particularly training above and beyond the immediate task …increased staff turnover, increasing dissatisfaction with boring and menial jobs, and the raising of unrealistic expectations (about opportunities for progression, for example)". Further, Keep suggests that "policies which disengage the link between skill supply and skill deployment and usage in the workplace are liable to produce at best sub-optimal results", given that adult skills that are not used on a regular basis tend to atrophy.

The import of his view is that training interventions need to be linked with upgrading product market strategies, enhancing service quality and redesigning jobs and work organisation.

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Demand generated by product suppliers

To some extent, demand for continuing education and training is generated by the ready availability of supply. Developments in information and communications technology and the increasing competition among providers can lead to wider choice for learning customers, greater convenience, better quality, improved relevance to needs and lower costs. These factors are considered in the next part.

Questions about demand:

• Who is seeking access to continuing education and training? How many? What are their characteristics? Why are they seeking it? What are they wanting (in terms of content, experience, feedback, qualification)?
• Who is participating, to what extent, how, where when and for what purposes? Who is paying for what (learners, employers, government)?
• What are people’s expectations and preferences regarding times, durations, places and modes of learning? To what extent and how do these factors (and motivations/anxieties) vary across age, gender, cultural and other group characteristics
• Who is not participating? How many? What are their characteristics? Why are they not participating? What, if any, problems arise from their non-participation? What factors might induce them to participate (convenience of access, course fitness for purpose, financial assistance, other)?
• To what extent can lifelong learning be made more affordable by reducing its costs, both direct and indirect opportunity costs for participants through convenient and efficient provision?
• What forms of financial assistance are likely to be most effective in increasing lifelong learning? Who should be eligible to receive such assistance, under what terms and conditions, how much, for what and for how long?
• To what extent, if any, do current differences in public subsidies between education and training sectors and systems affect levels and forms of education and training participation? What are the reasons for such differences and how important are the behavioural incentives?
• What is the potential demand by market segment?
• What policy initiatives might assist market growth?
  • demand-side initiatives (eg. information to guide choice, access to loans)
  • supply-side initiatives (eg. entry of private providers)

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4. Supply-side considerations

Supply of continuing education and training is normally identified by sectors of provision within the national education and training system, whether public or private: schools; vocational education and training; higher education; and adult and continuing education. However, these boundaries are blurring both across sectors and public institutions are in several areas operating commercially. There are also new non-education sector providers entering the market, selling education services as an extension of their core business or seeing new markets of demand for their products and services.

Australia has some 4,540 private providers of vocational education and training, 70 public VET providers (TAFE colleges/institutes), 79 private higher education providers and 37 public HE providers (universities, colleges). Watson (1999) reported on private providers registered to offer higher education courses as at 31 March 1999.

The 79 institutions that responded to the survey cater for 31,212 students ( 18,877 EFTSU) in over 200 courses of study. These EFTSU represent 3.4% of total higher education full-time equivalent student enrolments.

The ABS estimated 60,500 students in its 1997 survey of students, almost twice the number reported by directors of institutions in the Watson 1999 survey; it is thought the lower number more accurate as the ABS estimate is likely to include VET courses, with student misunderstanding the categorisation of courses and providers, given many of the providers are multi-sectoral. This is yet another instance where the old boundaries confound our understanding of what is happening in Australian post-compulsory education and training.

Of the students in private HE courses, 72% were studying part-time (compared with 27% for public HEIs). 57% of students were studying in the field of Business/ Administration/ Economics. This compares with total HE enrolments in that field of 24%. The private students represent 10% of total HE students in that field. 47% of private enrolments were at the postgraduate level compared with 16% for public HEIs; the bulk of which were postgraduate diplomas (73%). And 9% of private enrolments were in non-degree undergraduate diploma and certificate courses compared with 1% for public HEIs.

The private HE providers could be broadly classified as private universities (22%), professional/ industry associations (33%), theological colleges (17%) and ‘niche-market operators’ (28%), the latter including alternative therapies, visual and performing arts, business colleges and independent bible colleges. When asked about the factors influencing their growth, 81% of respondents identified the importance of State and territory accreditation processes in enhancing their market reputation. When asked about factors inhibiting their growth, two thirds cited competition from other private providers, 64% identified the absence of Commonwealth funding for student places and several mentioned the lack of a HECS-style deferred fee paying option for students.

Tailored training – whether in the form of short courses and certificates, or firm-specific content embedded in degree courses, or with work-based learning credited towards a qualification, or some combination of all of the above – is being offered by a growing number of universities. The University of Western Sydney in the early 1990s made arrangements for firm-specific modules to be integrated within degree programs for ANSTO, ICI and Caltex.

Deakin Australia acts as a wholesale arm selling tailored training courses to companies like Ford and professional associations and has several joint ventures, including with the Coles Institute, and Deakin Corrs, Schneider. Australian university Graduate Schools have been providing customised, short course executive development programs that can articulate to a postgraduate certificate, diploma or degree.

Monash University’s Mt Eliza Business school have partnered to form the Honda Business Institute. And we have Melbourne University Private as an independent company, Qantas College online, the Hotel School and others. The professional associations in such fields as accounting, engineering, medicine and psychiatry provide and arrange for the provision of courses to meet registration to practise requirements. Many universities also provide continuing education programs and offer various courses and modules through their commercial arms.

Firms and professional bodies are increasingly prepared to make their own arrangements for workforce training and professional development if they cannot secure suitable and efficient provision from universities and colleges. Universities are losing their monopoly over teaching, research and the award of qualifications.

Conversely, there may be new opportunities for universities in fields where they have not been traditionally active, such as postgraduate medical education, if they can offer attractive services. However, the recent trend of universities’ entry into new fields has been downstream rather than upstream, to occupations previously the domain of VET providers (?? for example). And across several occupations there is a renewed push by professional bodies to claim authority to certify for practice, eschewing formal educational attainment.

New forms of delivery through e-education are proliferating. New education services are on offer from new providers and through new collaborations among established and new providers. The new forms can be independent of place and time, cross school, VET, HE, and ACE sectors, involve public and private providers from education and other industries, and be delivered with reasonable quality at relatively low cost.

These new providers have characteristics that are likely to challenge the markets of established higher education institutions and require them to transform themselves and their operations. The key features are: borderlessness; earner-learner focus; convenience; customisation; modularisation; application orientation; practitioner teachers; quality assurance and disaggregation of functions.

The education business markets that offer growth (earner-learners, especially overseas) are being penetrated by globally distributed provider consortia. This will be a major source of competition for the vertically-integrated, locally-focussed institution (the traditional university) and responses by them may have significant implications for their governance, financial position and the industrial conditions of their employees.

These supply developments will have implications for international protocols regarding the mutual recognition of qualifications, including e-qualifications (such as those offered in India) and those awarded by international consortia of universities (Universitas 21) colleges or by firms (Microsoft) or professional bodies (APESMA). These supply developments also have implications for universities’ recognition of short course attendance and ‘modules’ obtained through study in various modes for credit towards an award qualification. Practices currently vary, with some requiring grounding in a discipline or a sequence of study units geared to the acquisition of foundation understandings and skills.

Questions arise regarding curriculum coherence and learning capabilities in respect of programs offering convenience above all else. If credit transfer principles and practices are not sufficiently transparent, employers or graduates may look to direct testing instruments to verify the attainment of graduate skills. The higher education policy framework itself will be challenged by the diversification of supply, including boundary blurring across provider types and sectors.

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Higher education and performative learning

Some profound educational questions arise from these various developments. As higher education institutions become more involved in post-initial education and training, in competition with new providers and products, is the production function of higher education being transformed, and if so, how? It may be that universities involved in this area have ways of fencing off their core undergraduate and postgraduate award programs from those they offer in the lifelong learning market for more immediate application.

It is also possible that the approaches to post-initial education and training are permeating the foundation-level courses in ways that may either enhance and broaden learning or narrow it.

For instance, the recognition of prior experiential learning, the development of curricula for non-traditional work-based subject matter, the modularisation of curricula and the growth of virtual delivery, are taken together potentially far-reaching. They offer the elements of increased flexibility, convenience, interactivity and customisation – desired features for responding to part of the demand for post-initial education and training. To the extent that these features are embedded within foundation tertiary education courses, unless they are particularly well designed, they may threaten educational coherence and limit opportunities for learning to learn, hence eroding the foundations.

Underlying these questions is the shift in conceptions of learning, whereby the traditional value placed on propositional knowledge and scientific process in higher education is challenged by the demand for operational competence through performative learning. The OECD 2000 suggests that the innovation process through which knowledge is put to use necessarily involves multiple stakeholders in interactive relationships, drawing on codified knowledge but placing special value on the sharing of experience-based, professionally tacit can-do knowledge. In so doing it challenges universities to prepare students who can acquire know-how in work, with the following stark depiction of differences between "schooling" and "apprenticeship":

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Gallacher and Reeve (2000) consider some of the underlying tensions between notions of ‘academic competence’ and ‘operational competence’. Reflecting on the UK’s experience with work-based learning in higher education, Gallacher and Reeve describe how initial descriptions of competences through functional analysis for vocational qualifications assessment were gradually broadened beyond narrow disaggregations of work roles through the incorporation of cognitive abilities and professional values.

They indicate that curriculum designers are now attempting "to introduce notions of reflection on learning, stressing the interaction between practice competence and reflection on practice", suggesting that the submerging of competences into more general sets of learning outcomes contributes to clearer definitions of ‘standards’ in higher education.

They see this direction as a more appropriate path for higher education to take than seeking to stay within and protect traditional discipline boundaries which no longer, neither through substance nor method, provide the only basis for knowledge production (Gibbons et al, 1994). However, it means for higher education that control over what is to be learned and how it is to be learned is opened up to negotiation with employers and learners.

Several Australian universities, notably those of the ATN, are international pace-setters in this development. Within the VET sector there is also underway a reconsideration of generic employability competencies. At the leading edge there is some convergence between the sectors seen most clearly, perhaps not surprisingly, within the multi-sector institutions. The leading exemplar among the universities is the University of South Australia:

www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/gradquals

At the University of South Australia (USA) graduate qualities are ‘embedded in’ curriculum development, pedagogy and assessment, rather than bolted-on. They are integral to the learning process. At USA, generic indicators are identified for each of the seven graduate qualities and these can be elaborated to suit different occupational needs. Students can track their development of the capabilities through an on-line database and present a portfolio demonstrating their attainments to prospective employers.

A graduate of the University of South Australia:

• operates effectively with and upon a body of knowledge of sufficient depth to begin professional practice
• is prepared for lifelong learning in pursuit of personal development and excellence in professional practice
• is an effective problem solver capable of applying logical, critical and creative thinking to a range of problems
• can work both autonomously and collaboratively as a professional
• is committed to ethical action and social responsibility as a professional and citizen
• communicates effectively in professional practice and as a member of the community
• demonstrates international perspectives as a professional and as a citizen

University educators and professional bodies in several areas are also working together on what may be seen as a paradigm shift in curriculum design and implementation, with a move to student-based (eg VUT’s open access programme), problem-based (eg USydney’s graduate medical programme), or outcomes-based learning. The Institution of Engineers Australia, for example, is supporting the development of educational programs that demonstrate an appropriate balance between technical competence and generic capabilities such as teamwork, leadership, effective communication, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and ethical practice. Mode 1 and Mode 2 learning is taking shape within Australia’s higher education system.

Given that a broad equilibrium has been maintained between higher education supply and demand over the last two decades, that access is relatively open and there are multiple providers offering to meet varying needs, the challenges ahead are more qualitative than quantitative. Effective learning for the diversity of personal, vocational and social needs is the key requirement.

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Questions about supply:

• Which organisations are delivering E&T? How big is their business? Which segments of the market are they serving?
• What differences can we ascertain across provider types (universities, colleges, professional bodies, corporates, others) in terms of the extent and nature of their participation?
• What factors explain these differences (eg. mission focus, organisational responsiveness to customer needs, structural and operational flexibility, locational or bandwidth connectivity constraints)?
• What are different providers offering (formal or non-formal programs, award courses, units that may lead to awards, stand-alone modules, articulated modules)?
• How are programs designed (provider-driven, industry-driven, off-the-shelf, employer or student customised, sector-specific or cross-sectoral)?
• How are programs delivered (classroom-based, workplace-based, virtual)?
• How much do programs cost? What, if any, additional services can be purchased?
• What are the main pedagogical practices? What is the balance between theory & practice, codified & tacit knowledge, learning of content and learning by doing?
• What attainments are realised (qualifications, certification)? Who recognises the learning attainments (for employment, for further education) and through what processes?
• What learning outcomes are achieved? How are they demonstrated, assessed and reported? What are the success rates from commencement to completion?
• To what extent has the substance of higher education changed away from professional preparation and towards laying the foundation of knowledge which might be supplemented by more specific knowledge to be acquired through subsequent courses?
• Should higher education base the continuing education it provides on its principal self-understandings as research-oriented teaching and learning, critical thinking and integration of academic and professional learning, or should its widest possible immersion into the demands of professional education in turn lead to a revision of its traditional self-understanding (cf. Teichler, 1999)?
• To what extent, if at all, are the continuing education activities of universities influencing the provision of foundation tertiary education? If so, do these influences work in ways that extend or limit educational experiences and learning outcomes for students?

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Attachment A:

Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 1998. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 2000

- Nil or rounded to zero
"NOTE: © Commonwealth of Australia 2000"

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Attachment A continued......

- Nil or rounded to zero
"NOTE: © Commonwealth of Australia 2000"

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References

Andrews, L. and Wu, T. The Labour Market Experience of Higher Education Graduates over the Last Decade, Higher Education Division, DETYA, Occasional Papers Series, June 1998

Andrews, L. and Tarchalski, K. The Changing Relationship Between Education and the Labour Market, Research and Evaluation Branch, DETYA, July 2000

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Employer Training Practices Australia, February 1997 (6356.0)

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 1998, unpublished data

Australian National Training Authority, National Marketing Strategy for Skills and Lifelong Learning, "General Community Research Report", The Research Forum et al, January 2000

Australian National training Authority, National Marketing Strategy for Skills and Lifelong Learning, "Market Segmentation Report", The Research Forum et al, March 2000

Borthwick,S., Roussel, S., and Briant, J. Barriers to private investment in human capital, IAED, DETYA, 2001

Brookfield, S. "Adult Cognition as a Dimension of Lifelong Learning", in Lifelong Learning: Education Across the Lifespan, Field, J. & Leicester, M. Falmer Press. Philadelphia. (forthcoming)

Gallacher, J. and Reeve, F. "Work-based Learning: the implications for Higher Education and for supporting informal learning in the workplace", Glasgow Caledonian University, 2000

Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. and Trow. The new production of knowledge: the dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London. Sage. 1994

Gibbs, J. VET and small business – review of research. NCVER, 1997

Keep, E. "Learning Organisations, Lifelong Learning and the Mystery of the Vanishing Employers", ESRC Centre on Skills, University of Warwick, UK, 2000

McDonald, P. and Kippen, R. "Ageing: the social; and demographic dimensions", in Policy Implications of the Ageing of Australia’s Population, Productivity Commission, AusInfo, Canberra. 1999

More, W.S. Emotions and Adult Learning. Farnborough, UK.: Saxon House, 1974

O’Connell, P.J. "Adults in Training: An International Comparison of Continuing Education and Training", CERI. OECD. Paris. 1999

OECD, Learning Beyond Schooling: New Forms of Supply and New Demand. Paris. 1994

OECD, Adult Learning in a Technological Era, Paris. 1996

OECD, "Labour Market policies: New Challenges; Lifelong Learning to Maintain Employability". Paris. 1997

OECD, Education Policy Analysis 1998. Paris. 1998

OECD, Employment Outlook 1999, Paris. 1999

OECD, Knowledge Management in the Learning Society: Education and Skills, Paris. 2000

Roussel, S. Factors Influencing Participation in Post-secondary Education and Training in Australia: 1989 to 1997. DETYA. 2000

Taylor, P., Laplagne, P. and deLaine, C. "The implications of ageing for education policy" in Policy Implications of the Ageing of Australia’s Population, Productivity Commission, AusInfo, Canberra. 1999

Teichler, U. "Lifelong Learning as Challenge for Higher Education: the State of Knowledge and Future Research Tasks", Higher Education Management, OECD, IMHE, Vol. 11. No. 1, March 1999

Watson, L. Survey of Private Providers in Australian Higher Education, EIP, DETYA, 1999

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Footnotes

[1] Changes to ABS classifications of VET qualifications make it impossible to provide a consistent time series.

[2] This is at the upper end of OECD countries. See, for example, OECD (2000: 150) 

[3] Defined as activities which were undertaken to obtain, maintain or improve work-related skills, conducted at a designated time, in a structured format but which did not lead to the award of an educational qualification (ABS, 1997: 128). 

[4] The categories are not mutually exclusive. 

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