Adapted from a speech by Craig Robertson, CEO, Victorian Skills Authority to the VET Quality and Innovation Summit, Melbourne 26 March 2025.

Australia’s vocational education and training (VET) system is undergoing its most significant transformation in three decades.

After the Albanese Government accepted the recommendation of the tripartite VET Qualification Reformreport, work is shifting from blueprint to build.

While there are isolated examples of success, too often previous reform efforts resembled a chess game focused on a few clever moves — sacrificing a pawn here, repositioning a knight there — while losing sight of the endgame.

Real reform demands grandmaster thinking, seeing the whole board, anticipating future moves, and aligning every piece towards a winning strategy.

Five moves we must break……

The reform process has clarified five critical challenges:

• Proliferation without purpose: The unitised standards system has led to an unsustainable proliferation of training products. Thousands of units exist, but only a fraction are regularly used, creating false choices and stifling innovation.
• Rigid pathways: Qualification “ladders” rarely reflect the real-world goals of learners, who increasingly seek flexible, personalised pathways. Instead, the system often forces them through rigid structures that no longer serve them.
• Isolated competencies: While competency-based training has its strengths, it often leads to islands of learning with limited transferability, at odds with today’s need for broad, adaptable skills.
• Prescriptive inputs: Quality assurance is dominated by prescriptive input requirements, prioritising compliance over teaching excellence.
• Systemic inefficiencies: Too many resources are spent maintaining underused training products. The result? Returns for learners reduce and higher education and micro-credentials become more attractive alternatives.

……and five moves we must make

Addressing these challenges needs a reset, guided by five organising principles:

1. Embrace diverse learning outputs: While competency-based training suits well-defined occupations, foundational skills and emerging sectors require alternative pedagogies.
2. Prioritise qualifications over units: Designing around student and industry value, rather than accumulating redundant units, will create more coherent, future-focused qualifications.
3. Elevate knowledge as the foundation of adaptive practice: Transferable knowledge enables workers to navigate change, bridge industry boundaries, and remain employable across their careers.
4. Empower RTOs and practitioners: Shifting from input micromanagement to outcomes-focused standards will unlock innovation and improve learner outcomes.
5. Redefine VET’s value proposition: Integrating pathways between vocational training, higher education, and non-accredited learning is essential to meet lifelong learning needs in a dynamic economy.

Putting principles into practice

I recently met with members of the leadership team at Future Skills Organisation (FSO) to learn how they are actively putting these principles into practice.

Leveraging the new Training Package knowledge and skills template, FSO is designing qualifications that recognise the need for both generalist and specialist skills thus enabling learners to develop a blend of broad capabilities and in-depth technical occupation focused expertise. Their immediate priority is to embed digital capability, artificial intelligence, and cyber security knowledge across a diverse range of job roles and industries, equipping the workforce with the skills essential for today’s economy.

To accelerate reform, FSO is conducting training product trials — piloting innovative approaches to developing qualifications and skill sets more rapidly, working in parallel with existing systems. Their goal is to implement these solutions at scale across states and territories, in close partnership with TAFEs, private registered training organisations, and industry stakeholders.

Success in work and life

The VET reforms offer a real opportunity to enable everyone to access education and training that works in a coherent way to build their capability for success in work and life.

If we get the execution right, we won’t end up in checkmate. We’ll open the board and give every learner the space to move freely, in any direction they choose. That will be a real breakthrough.

Get involved in FSO’s work by becoming a Collaborator: https://www.futureskillsorganisation.com.au/collaborator

Craig Robertson is CEO of the Victorian Skills Authority. He has a wealth of knowledge in the training and skills field, with a significant career in the state and federal public sector and a reputation as a leader in vocational training policy and reform.

Previously, Craig was the CEO of TAFE Directors Australia from 2017-21, representing TAFEs Australia-wide. In 2015-16 he was Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Department of Education and Training, and prior to that he had more than 30 years in various roles in the Australian Government, focused on schools funding, employment services and vocational education and training.