Article 2024

Curriculum across the great divide: exploring a key problem of Australian tertiary education

HS
Hodge, Steven
 GH
Guthrie, Hugh B.
 JA
Jones, Anne
 WM
Waters, Melinda
International Journal of Training Research
Journal · Vol. 22 · Issue 1 · pp. 31-45
Abstract

Tertiary education in Australia is dominated by a division between two large systems of provision: vocational education and training (VET) and higher education (HE). Over time, these tertiary education sectors have become distinct in several respects, including the way curriculum is conceived and practiced. In VET, competency-based training operates as a system-wide curriculum model. In HE, different professions and disciplines, in addition to university requirements, directly influence and shape curriculum design. The Australian competency-based model has been politicised over the last few decades, leading to fetishisation of the standards used to guide learning and teaching in VET and fostering distinct approaches to curriculum in the two systems. Schwab’s notion of curriculum commonplaces can be used to examine teaching and learning in VET to highlight ways in which an expanded concept of curriculum could lead to a renewal of VET and simultaneously promote generative articulation between the two tertiary systems. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Higher education Tertiary education vocational education and training curriculum Competency-based training

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Mitchell Institute, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
References 10 References
1 Anzsco Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations, (2023)
2 Australian Universities Accord Final Report, (2024)
3 Barnett, Ronald A., Knowing and becoming in the higher education curriculum, Studies in Higher Education, 34, 4, pp. 429-440, (2009)
4 Biesta, Gert J.J., Knowledge, judgement and the curriculum: On the past, present and future of the idea of the Practical, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45, 5, pp. 684-696, (2013)
5 Cbt Decade Teaching for Flexibility and Adaptability, (1999)
6 Review of Australian Higher Education Final Report, (2008)
7 Handbook of Research on Curriculum, (1992)
8 Working Future the Australian Governments White Paper on Jobs and Opportunities, (2023)
9 Curriculum Making Reciprocal Learning and the Best Loved Self, (2020)
10 Vet and Higher Education Should We Push for Integration, (2022)
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