Given our most recent disucssions around area planning, trade training centres and closer community-education-industry links, this is a very timely report that we would encourage all LLEN stakeholders to read.

Well-skilled future (Report) released. This is the final report of the research program: A well-skilled future: Tailoring VET to the emerging labour market.

It presents key points from five research themes. Its aim is to reflect the vocational education and training (VET) sector's responses to employers' and employees' changing skills' needs. National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) 14 July 2008. The authors are Sue Richardson and Richard Teese.

The key messages from the report include the importance of understanding that:

Supply and demand for skills are very difficult concepts to pin down and measure, principally because many people learn their vocational skills informally, on the job. While greater local interaction between industry and VET will improve understanding of the market, at the national and state levels policy-makers must learn to live with uncertainty.

They should focus on: areas where markets do not work well; skills that take a long time to train; or shortages that cause major bottlenecks.

More details can also be found in our discussion forum by following this link