CEET REPORTS

The returns to jurisdictions from their participation in The Learning Federation initiative and options for future funding
Mike Long, Sue North and Gerald Burke.

This is the first of two reports that examine the economic impact of the MCEETYA-sponsored schools’ curriculum content initiative, The Le@rning Federation (TLF). The initiative was introduced in 2000 to advance policies to improve educational outcomes in schools by making greater use of digital resources in teaching and learning, to move towards greater commonality in curriculum among jurisdictions and to foster broader cooperation among states and territories in the provision of school education—goals that are still current.

This report examined the benefits to the participating jurisdictions—the Australian and New Zealand Governments and the governments of Australia’s states and territories—from their participation in the initiative. The report found that TLF had:

• Contributed substantially to the availability of curriculum-relevant digital content for teachers. The initiative will have provided at least 8,600 digital learning objects and other digital resources by the end of its third phase in June 2009.
• Produced digital content cost effectively by allowing jurisdictions to share costs.
• More than satisfied standard requirements for public infrastructure investment under reasonably conservative assumptions about links with the quality of education, labour productivity and GDP growth.
• The potential to partially offset the costs of the initiative through savings on digital copyright charges to jurisdictions.

Maintaining the currency of the digital content and the structure of the initiative in its next phase is similarly cost effective.

The value of the intellectual capital created by The Learning Federation digital curriculum content initiative
Fran Ferrier and Mike Long.

This second report on The Learning Federation (TLF) shift the focus from the tangible benefits examined in the first report to the intangible benefits that flow from TLF’s intellectual capital. Other research has suggested that the intangible value of ICT investments can be up to nine times the tangible value. The report identified many forms of capital created by the initiative:

• Human capital—through stimulating more innovative and effective teaching; encouraging content producers and holders to provide digital content; and through creating a pool of people with knowledge of appropriate standards and specifications.
• Structural capital—through creating robust quality systems and technical and content quality standards; enabling central infrastructure; developing a ‘critical mass’ of quality-assured digital content that can act as exemplars; setting high standards for quality content; raising awareness of standards (e.g. W3C standards); documenting new pedagogies and ‘educational soundness’ of content through research and evaluation; providing a capacity to manage intellectual property (IP) nationally; and through building pedagogical soundness into digital resources and strengthening links between digital content and pedagogy.
• Relational capital—through providing leadership in the design of effective interactive content; creating a space and culture for collaboration and co-operation across jurisdictions including a common language and standards for working together; creating an environment that facilitated the testing and refining of ideas; promoting ‘inclusivity’, especially among teachers; ensuring a sense of ownership of the initiative at a jurisdictional level; creating and supporting networks for sharing ideas, progress, stories and building intellectual capability; promoting Commonwealth-state collaboration; providing the foundation for further collaborative work on the development and production of resources; and through encouraging cooperation rather than competition among participants.

Current education policies provide opportunities to leverage TLF intellectual capital to create significant further value and to accelerate progress toward the national vision for ICTs in education

How Young Indigenous People are Faring
Mike Long

This report uses information from the 1996, 2001 and 2006 ABS Censuses of Population and Housing to examine changes in the education and labour force participation of Indigenous teenagers (15 to 9 year-olds), young adults (20 to 24 year-olds) and 25 to 29 year-olds.

Against a background of overall disadvantage, there are some positives:

• Participation in full-time education by Indigenous teenagers has increased in relative and absolute terms.
• Participation in full-time employment increased between 2001 and 2006 for young Indigenous adults and 25 to 29 year-olds.
• The proportion of Indigenous young adults and 25 to 29 year-olds who had completed Year 12 increased and the proportion with post school qualifications increased quite substantially.
• Higher levels of schooling and post-school education are strongly associated with higher levels of full-time employment—the education policy lever works.

On the negative side, any improvements for young Indigenous Australians were rarely sufficient to keep up with society-wide improvements:

• Participation in full-time study by Indigenous young adults and 25 to 29 year-olds stagnated or declined.
• The improvements in the educational attainments of young Indigenous Australians were rarely strong enough to close the gap with the increasing educational attainments of non-Indigenous Australians.

Vocational education and training providers in competitive training markets
Fran Ferrier, Tom Dumbrell and Gerald Burke, NCVER 2008

This study explores the experiences and initiatives of vocational education and training (VET) providers in three areas:

• income sources and mixes
• 'thin markets' in VET
• research and development.

The report contributes to a deeper understanding of the scope and range of VET activities in a competitive environment and the factors that shape them. The report found the following range of strategies in use:

• The forming of partnerships and alliances and targeting alternative market segments.
• Reducing costs and seeking additional income sources.
• Offering innovative and distinctive products and services and co-branding with respected partners.
• Developing their own staff or forming alliances which give them access to additional capabilities.
• Forming alliances with partners able to provide assistance with marketing, seeking referrals from existing clients and maintaining close relationships with potential clients.

Overall, the work of VET providers who are successful in a changing competitive environment is characterised by application, adaptability and creativity.

A Stocktake of Social Inclusion in VET and Higher Education, Powerpoint Presentation
Fran Ferrier and Sue North

The emergence of social inclusion and exclusion as concepts for understanding and responding to social issues leads to the question: Can they be applied so that they will extend current understandings of inequities in education and guide and frame more effective responses?

This CEET project investigated:

• The meanings of ‘social inclusion’ and ‘social exclusion’.
• How these concepts are measured.
• The relationship between educational disadvantage and social exclusion.
• Location based approaches to social exclusion.
• Social inclusion policies and strategies adopted overseas and in Australia.

The work identified an emerging consensus around social inclusion and exclusion as processes rather than states. These processes occur in four dimensions: social, political, cultural and economic. Analysis of data from the General Social Survey found that people with a low-level or no post-school qualification (Year 11 or less or Certificate 1 as their highest qualification) also scored highly on measures of social exclusion in the economic, social and political dimensions.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

Phil McKenzie from ACER and a CEET Director co-presented a paper on the “On Track" project to the Career Development Association of Australia (CDAA) annual conference in Melbourne is April. The paper, "The Destinations of Victorian School Leavers: Key Findings from the On Track Project" can be downloaded from http://www.education.monash.edu.au/centres/ceet/ ACER manages On Track under contract to the Victorian DEECD. The paper was presented with Trish Corrie from DEECD.

OTHER REPORTS

In January ACER released the report "Occupations and Earnings of Young Australians: The Role of Education and Training", by Gary Marks. This was Research Report No. 55 in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) program. The report looked at:

• effects of different types of post-secondary education and training on occupational status and earnings
• the patterns of occupational status and earnings in the years after obtaining qualifications.

The types of education and training analysed were apprenticeships, traineeships, technical and further education (TAFE) certificates, TAFE diplomas, university diplomas, university degrees, post-graduate degrees and other qualifications comprising mainly courses run by private providers.  The research was based on the Year 9 class of 1995 (the Y95 cohort) and analyses data collected up until 2005 when members of this cohort were approximately 24 years of age. The report, along with other information on LSAY, can be downloaded from: http://www.lsay.edu.au/.