Cross-Sector Initiative: Tertiary Education Initiatives
[ Last Updated 14 October 2005 ]
Two key themes emerged across the Taskforce reports with respect to tertiary education and training. These were:
- The need to develop an engaged and responsive tertiary sector - wherein emerging sectors such as those represented by the taskforces could readily engage with tertiary training organisations to help ensure:
- an appropriate number of graduates are produced to meet the needs of industry;
- the graduates' skill levels are relevant to match the rapidly changing needs of these sectors;
- the production of graduates is timely with respect to the needs of business
[Note: that this is particularly important in the taskforce sectors given the long lead time needed to train students to the post-graduate level required in many of these areas]; and - graduates have more awareness of career options and pathways within these sectors.
- The importance of an entrepreneurial culture and a greater degree of commercial astuteness were deemed important at all levels, including the:
- overall "roundedness" of the training that graduates receive in the disciplines underpinning the GIF focus areas;
- approach, and pro-activeness, that public tertiary providers take to transferring new knowledge and technologies through to the private sector; and
- life-long learning and development of key decision-makers within these sectors to cope with the demands of rapid growth in an international environment.
The tertiary sector is currently undertaking tertiary education reforms that are focused on improving linkages and industry relevance. The Taskforce reports indicate a need for capability building within the tertiary sector in order to enhance responsiveness to the GIF sectors. This would enable the sectors to make the most of the opportunities provided by the tertiary reforms and its more "mainstream" funding and policy mechanisms (such as Charter & Profile negotiations, Performance-based Research Fund, Industry Training Fund, etc).
The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) is developing two initiatives to specifically help build the capability of the tertiary system in response to the Taskforces' issues.
The first is entitled Enterprise Training for Emerging Industries ($11.55m over four years). This will be a pilot initiative to build stronger relationships between the GIF sectors and the tertiary education sector. The pilots will develop different models through which the GIF sectors can better engage with tertiary education providers in order to develop a shared approach to setting and implementing industry-relevant education agendas.
The second initiative, Entrepreneurship & Knowledge Transfer ($10.00 million over four years) is specifically targeted at addressing a lack of commercial and entrepreneurial skills among graduates and existing decision-makers in business. All of the Taskforces identified this knowledge gap as a major barrier to growth.
Cost: $26.05 million over four years.
Contact: Craig Grant, Principal Advisor, Tertiary Education Commission, 04-462 5218
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