The future of Australian vocational education qualifications depends on a new social settlement

This article argues that the current social settlement underpinning vocational education and training (VET) in Australia is fractured. The current settlement is low trust and consists of qualifications based on competency-based training models of curriculum and competitive markets. The result is narrow qualifications that do not prepare people for jobs associated with the qualifications, and the decimation of technical and further education (TAFE) institutes which are the public providers of VET. The article develops a conceptual framework by integrating various literatures that are broadly consistent with institutionalist theories, including the Varieties of Capitalism literature, Raffe's and colleagues model of intrinsic and institutional logics, and literatures on skills ecosystems and educational and labour market transitions. This analysis shows why VET has such a low status in Anglophone liberal market economies. A new social settlement is needed that recognises the diverse purposes played by VET qualifications, underpinned by a differentiated model of VET qualifications that does not tie the outcomes of learning so tightly to particular occupations. Such a model would recognise that some qualifications will have tighter links to occupations than others.