Chapter 7: Improving Practice In Australia’svocational Education And Training Sector Through Communities Of Practice

The Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector is focused on developing an industry-led, demand-driven national training system that is underpinned by training providers forming effective relationships with clients. Forming these relationships is challenging for VET practitioners when there are so many stakeholders involved, including industry bodies, employ-ers, unions, employees and training providers. Communities of practice emerge from a study of 31 communities established around Australia in 2005 as an effective mechanism for VET practitioners in establishing productive relationships between these many stakeholders and hence improving the professional practice of these practitioners.

An extensive use of communities of practice (CoPs) in the Australian national vocational education and training (VET) sector commenced in 2001, as part of the program called Reframing the Future.¹ Participants in these CoPs represented a variety of teaching contexts, ranging from teaching within industries such as hairdressing, agriculture and manufacturing to teaching indigenous learners in remote locations. Other notable aspects of this initiative were that the CoPs involved personnel from multiple organizations, and included a mixture of educators and industry representatives, sometimes spread across different states and territories. This Australian initiative in funding and supporting CoPs is a response to the need for teachers and trainers in Australian VET to reform their practice, particularly in order to become more responsive to industry needs.²