Let's admit TAFE is getting it right

It was the front-page lead of The Australian on Wednesday last week, so I could hardly miss it:

UNIVERSITY graduates are increasingly being forced to enrol in TAFE courses to improve their job prospects, with students armed with arts and science degrees finding they do not have the skills to enter the workforce.

New data shows one in five students enrolled in some technical courses had completed university but required further study to obtain employment in their desired field.

As employers demanded higher skills from graduates, an OECD report released yesterday found Australia's schools spent too much time preparing students for university and gave inadequate attention to other training options.

Here's the story:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21228752-601,00.html

I have an understanding with a friend and occasional mentor, Suzanne Fleming, where I watch out for relevant items printed on dead trees. This one seemed ideal, so I emailed the link. Here's the comment she posted on one of her blogs.

It’s no accident that TAFE is leading the jobs training way. For the past fifteen years the planning and curriculum people have actually been sitting down with industry and commerce leaders and asking them what they need.

TAFE listened and responded. It changed course content, improved teaching methods and it got rid of course padding. Thank God for that. They actually chucked out all that bloody stuff that did nothing to enhance training quality.

And now we can take pride in the fact that graduating TAFE students are properly prepared for the jobs they’re employed for. They can actually be productive workers when they first start their job.

Apart from the usual inductions, TAFE trained people start working on real tasks immediately. Employers don’t have to spend valuable hours retraining them, they can be assigned productive tasks from day one.

I just love wandering around the trade schools. It’s great to watch students building brick walls, house frames, fixing electrical equipment and motor vehicle components or building a boat.

TAFE teachers can take pride in the fact we do it well. The students we send out have great vocational skills.

Can teachers cope with the digital onrush?

This is adapted from a post on my other blog last week. I've moved it here because I've trimmed it down to issues confronting educators as the digital revolution sweeps us forward. Again I've picked up comments from one of Suzanne Fleming's blogs.

The Weekend Australian's Review section a week ago had an account of the race between Google and Microsoft to scan the entire contents of the world's great libraries. The scale of these projects is mind-boggling. Google has now scanned one million books, while Microsoft has an initial deal to scan 100,000 books in the British Library.

The article's author, Bryan Appleyard, says: “We are, it seems, about to lose physical contact with books, the primary experience and foundation of civilisation for the past 500 years.”

In his last paragraph, he says teachers must prime young minds to deal with the information deluge coming our way – “on that priming depends the future of civilisation.” Thought provoking stuff. Read it here.

And on that topic – how to prepare young people for the digital world which is racing towards us – education and new technology guru Dale Spender offered valuable ideas in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Here are her concluding paragraphs: “At present many of the information skills that students need for earning and living are learned outside educational institutions (they are just so brilliant at doing and creating for themselves) . . .

“But if they excel at digital activity and inventiveness, students now need more support and guidance when it comes to evaluation and critical judgment. They need to know when one idea, one way of doing something, has more going for it than another.

“What they don't need are rules about how much Australian history they should be able to reproduce, or how many Shakespearean speeches they should be able to quote . . .”

Read her article. Readers may like to check out Dr Spender's website, although it hasn't been updated for a while.

Suzanne praised Dr Spender's views with these comments:

Finally there is someone else who understands young people's learning needs. And the fact they need, and want, a new way of interacting with the world.

Young people do not want, or need, to be taught 'talk and chalk' style.Why? Because they found out a long time ago, that teachers aren't God. And they also found out that teachers don't know everything.

And guess what else they found out? Shock, horror, they found out they actually know a lot more than teachers often give them credit for. And wonder of wonders, they have discovered the joy of being actively involved in the learning process.

They made some great discoveries in very short timeframe. Congratulations to all those young learners out there. Well done kids!

Young people want mentors who can guide them. People who talk to them honestly about the world they're soon going to enter. They want to hear about the good, the bad and the ugly.

They want to be able to make informed decisions about their own learning and how it fits into the scheme of things. Especially how it fits into the world of industry and commerce.

They need good teachers who respect them. Teachers who trust their ability to make exciting and worthwhile discoveries for themselves.

Young learners need window openers and encouragers. They don't need to be: talked at - talked down to - and most of all they don't need people telling them they can't take responsbility for their own learning.

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Your grumpy old moderator manages a wee smile when he contemplates this scenario:

Scene: A class in almost any junior public high school.

Teacher: "Now girls, put your books away. We've completed your daily instalment of Pride and Prejudice, and we'll move on to the next period. If someone will get those bananas out of the cupboard, we'll make sure you've learned your lessons on how to roll on a condom." It happens (the bananas bit). I checked with a granddaughter.

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