The Australian modernist national system of VET was configured in the early 1990s as one of three major micro economic reform agendas in a rapidly deregulating globalising ‘market place’ shaped by contradictory discourses associated with the neoliberal policies of Thatcher &Reagan and Australian values of equity.  Since that time, the Australian VET system and the institutional arrangements underpinning it have been in a continual state of flux. Once again, after a period of rapid destabilisation, yet another re/form agenda is unfolding, with a myriad of spectators and key ‘stakeholders’ (each with their own particular understanding of ‘VET’) speculating about and trying to influence the process and the outcomes.

In this presentation, I shall provide an overview of selected shifts in the Australian VET system over the last 2.5 decades, linking them to prevailing politics of the times and so subsequent policy practices. Questions as to the efficacy of the institution of VET, its capacity to capture, contain ad deliver all required of it from competing viewpoints will be considered.

Contact: Pia Cort, cort@edu.au.dk