I have my bet on VET!
The underrating of vocational education in and across the country is no new news. The new and in fact bigger and startling news is that vocational education and training (VET) may promise graduates a more auspicious and successful career than a university degree, or at least equivalent.
Don’t only take my word for it. A latest report from McCrindle, which was commissioned by the Skilling Australia Foundation, advocates this claim, confirming that vocational education and training may take you places than its rich cousin: a multi-thousand dollar university degree.
The report may disappoint a lot of people’s perceptions about vocational education, who take vocational education and training for an impracticable education with little to no promises of a bright future. And I say a “lot of people”, because according to the report, four in five parents would prefer their children go to university after school over pursuing vocational education. Now, nowhere I am asserting that a university degree has any less significance or value; but attaining vocational education, sandwiched between a high school certificate and a university degree can do wonders for the student, who later may or may not choose to pursue a university degree at all.
Ok! Let’s put it this way: a vocational education may unlock a student’s potential three-folds and open new pathways and arenas for higher education.
Although, according to the figures in the report, nearly half of Australians think VET is no longer as relevant as university, government figures indicate a different story, according to which nine of the top 10 occupations predicted to have the most jobs growth are in vocational training areas. Now that is a significantly substantial number. One that ought to be given huge attention.
I found three findings of the report extremely encouraging. First that the median full-time income for a VET graduate is $56,000 compared with a $54,000 for an undergraduate; secondly that nearly eight in 10 VET graduates have a job soon after training, while only seven in 10 university graduates secure a job that soon after completing their degree. Lastly that more than nine in 10 trade apprentices have jobs after finishing training. These are amazing numbers and those that must not be neglected by the students themselves to gain hands-on skills in short time but one that requires immense dedication, by their parents and guardians to have confidence in them and VET and the government and other authorities to ensure proper and sufficient funding for students to gain hands-on skills.
Australian VET in India
The need for such skills acquisition becomes even more crucial in countries where the population growth is increasing several times faster than the rate of its expansion of education and literacy; and that is one of the objectives behind McKkr’s launching the Australian VET in India.
After a careful research of the needs of the Indian and Australian education industries, McKkr’s TAFE Training developed a programme to offer six nationally recognised qualifications in partnership with Hunter TAFE.
This has been a result of my prediction of the growing need for VET and its significance in Australia, India and the rest of the world and thus I took the Australian VET to India with a vision to make an effective and recognisable contribution in vocational education and training.
It is time that we stop treating VET as a less respectable choice than a university degree and stop treating it as the latter’s poor cousin. McCrindle’s latest report on the significance of VET now corroborates what I have been reiterating for quite some time and is just a “cherry on top”.
