One of the best bits of news in last week’s Queensland State Budget was the establishment of the Skills Commission, which according to the Education Minister, Geoff Wilson, “will examine economy – wide, across all major industry sectors, what skills are going to be needed for the whole Queensland economy in three to five years.”

That’s a big job in itself, given the well-known challenges in labour market forecasting.  Added to that there is an expectation in the community that the Commission will champion further reform of the vocational education and training (VET) sector, building on previous reforms which have boosted contestable training funding (i.e., training funding that private sector training organisations can compete for – through attracting students – against each other and with TAFEs).

If I were a policy adviser in the Education Department, one crucial piece of evidence I’d bring to the Skills Commission’s attention is the large variation across courses in the proportion of students who go on to careers related to their courses of study (see the paper Is VET Vocational? by Tom Karmel).

While people studying trades and technical courses tend to end up as tradies and technicians, for many other qualifications there is less of a direct flow on from the course to the actual job (e.g., many fashion design students don’t end up as fashion designers).  As Karmel notes, this may not be a problem, as many VET courses deliver useful training in generic skills.  Nonetheless, to the less optimistic, it may suggest the need for a significant reallocation of the training effort across courses in the VET system through an increase in contestable funding and flexibility.

Undoubtedly, these important reform issues will occupy the mind of the new Skills Commissioner, whoever that may end up being.  Peter Beattie, perhaps?  I hear he’s back in town.