Internationalisation of vocational education and training: an adapting curve for teachers and learners

Competency-based training and training packages are mandatory for Australian vocational education and training (VET). VET qualifications are designed to provide learners with skills, knowledge, and attributes required for Australian workplaces. Yet, toward the end of December 2011, there were 171,237 international student enrolments in the Australian vocational education sector.

VET currently ranks second behind the university sector by volume of international student enrolments in Australia. The flow of international students into Australian vocational education, their diverse learning characteristics, and their different acquired values have created new challenges as well as possibilities for teachers to transform their pedagogic practices and contribute to reshaping the pedagogy landscape in vocational education.

Drawing on interviews with 50 teachers from VET institutes in three states of Australia, this article discusses the emergence of international vocational education pedagogy that enables international students and indeed all learners to develop necessary skills, knowledge, and attributes in response to the new demands of the changing workplace context and global skills and knowledge mobility.

This article addresses a number of important issues concerning the interrelationship of international pedagogy and learner-centered education, notions of productive and inclusive pedagogies, transnational skills mobility, cultural diversity, and internationalization within the context of the Australian VET sector. Finally, the significance of these issues to educational providers and teachers across different educational levels and national contexts is discussed.

A survey of rural nurses and post registration tertiary education

Explores the participation in tertiary education by registered nurses in a rural city. The impact of tertiary education for nurses who are already registered has been poorly investigated in Australia. The main barriers to future study included family commitments, financial concern, lack of available time and a belief that tertiary study lacked relevance,

Tertiary education for social justice in an age of uncertainty

This thesis is concerned with tertiary teachers in a range of disciplines who focus on social justice. It found that current conditions of tertiary education are challenging for teachers and suggested that a "capabilities" approach can provide the basis for attending to professional and ethical issues for tertiary teachers.

Internationalisation in vocational education and training : moving from the periphery to the centre of VET?

Internationalisation has been one of the most notable phenomena facing tertiary education around the globe over the past three decades. Internationalisation is a crucial response to the demands to develop graduates who possess adequate skills, knowledge and attributes to engage and perform in a globalised and intercultural world.

Hegemony of printed books in Australian tertiary education a concept under challenge

This paper is about challenges to the hegemony of printed books in Australian tertiary education and the potential demise of that hegemony. Not because the book in its traditional form is considered by some to be outdated and not because ofcompeting products that might put the use of the traditional book under threat - our Australian 'book-industry' might well rise to such challenges given that competitiveness is a driving feature of business. This paper is about challenges to the hegemony of printed books in tertiary education because of forces entirely outside the 'book-industry's' control.

The function of traditional printed books within tertiary education is changing. Education is a user-pays product, and competitive pressures ensure students are given greater voice in the types of learning resources provided, with the evolution of electronic and communication technologies allowing student learning resources to be made available in a myriad of ways. Thus a traditional printed book may be an inflexible tool in a dynamic environment.

Designing educational tasks for success in industry: a reflection on the evolution of business communication studies in tertiary education

This paper is the result of a "Rip Van Winkle" experience I had concerning the teaching of Business Communication. The paper focuses on the remarkable expansion in the curriculum of the traditional "Business Communication" or "Business Writing" course offered by many tertiary institutions around the world. Based on 25 years of personal observation and experience in a number of educational settings, the paper will trace the increasing sophistication and complexity of the study of business communication from one that covered little more than lessons in the design of hardcopy memos, letters, and reports to one that now covers a broad spectrum of topics such as "emotional intelligence," "intercultural communication," "effective public speaking," as well as the effects of purpose and audience on the design of a wide variety of business communications.

An example of an effective task that involves a number of on the job activities is provided in the form of a ready to use assignment that is applicable in a number of contexts.

Internationalisation of Indonesian higher education : a study from the periphery

Globalisation as a global phenomenon has been influencing Indonesian Higher Education like other education systems in the world. Internationalisation in response to globalisation is a common feature in majority universities. It is also a feature of Indonesian Higher Education institutions, yet so far it seems that the way in which Indonesian higher education is responding to globalisation with internationalisation of its universities is not well reported.
This paper aims to address this gap by examining relevant government papers, policies, research, reports and other documents available on line as well as at web sites of universities and other related web sites depicting how internationalisation has been conducted in Indonesian higher education. The paper attempts to reveal the perceived challenges of globalisation for Indonesian higher education and to what extent and in what form internationalisation has been achieved. Particularly, it will analyse the relation between policies and practices and identify barriers to internationalisation. However, it should be noted that this article is selective rather than comprehensive in reflecting on the internationalisation process in Indonesian higher education.
Findings show that globalisation is perceived as a challenge requiring a response rather than as a threat to be dealt with. Many sources reflect that the government has been initiating and facilitating various programs to support internationalisation within the system. It appears that lack of capability at the institution level slows down the process. Under-representation of institutions reflected in the under-developed websites results in opacity of the real capacity of institutions. It seems that improving the basic factors shaping internationalisation such as capacities in English and ICT (Marginson, 2007) would trigger further the development of internationalisation in Indonesian higher education.

The development of Australian tertiary education to 1939

Some accounts of Australian education have suggested that the growth of mass public education has been the result of two factors. First, mass public demand, in the wake of the development of an industrial society which gave the working man more leisure, a rising standard of living, and an appreciation of the benefits of education. Second, the concern of more enlightened sections of the upper class for the welfare of the working class. The development of education is seen as linked with the development of the liberal democratic state. Other accounts have linked educational development with the development of capitalism in a more direct way. They suggest that schools developed with factories, wage labour and work dependence as agents of socialization, and for basic skill transmission, in the face of the declining influence of the church, family and artisan.

Students' intercultural development through language learning in Vietnamese tertiary education: a case study on the use of film as an innovative approach

Vietnam's open-door policy, its socialist-oriented market economy, recent growth in cross-border education and skills mobility, regionalisation and globalisation have created an increasing demand for Vietnamese graduates to develop not only their English language but also their intercultural competence. This paper discusses the issue of student intercultural learning and development in the Vietnamese English as a foreign language (EFL) class. Especially, it addresses the use of film as an innovative approach to engage Vietnamese students in intercultural learning and development in the EFL classroom. The study reported in this paper draws on rich sources of data which include in-depth interviews with students, student reflective journals and video-recorded class observations at a university in central Vietnam. Overall, five key themes relating to student intercultural learning through film have been identified in this study. These include enhancing knowledge about cultural differences, engaging in cross-cultural comparison, breaking cultural stereotypes, immersing students in authentic learning and living in the world of ‘other’ culture and the integrated mode of intercultural language learning. The study is a significant contribution to scholarly research on the use of media objects to enhance student intercultural learning in language classrooms in developing countries.