Australia's competitive success with innovation-based products and services is an influential factor to its long-term prosperity. Phillip Toner, Jane Marceau, Richard Hall and Gillian Considine examine the role of vocational education and training (VET) and occupations in innovative industries and firms. They find VET is vital to developing knowledge and practical skills across a broad...

Tim Wyatt critically examines two approaches to benchmarking vocational education and training - benchmarking through performance indicators and comparative case studies. He finds both approaches provide useful information, although the case study approach enables a more thorough analysis of particular issues and can take greater account of complex and diverse institutional structures. This approach also...

Data tables from the Student Outcomes Survey, which collects information about the students' general characteristics, employment outcomes, and satisfaction with their training.

Communication and other literacy skills are vital to public safety organisations. Christine Hayes, Barry Golding and Jack Harvey investigate the impact literacy levels may have on the ability of volunteers to meet demands for more formal training and assessment. They also consider the role of these organisations in developing the skills of people in rural...

Social partnerships provide communities with the capacity to address problems, such as community breakdown, unemployment and social exclusion. In this report Terri Seddon and Stephen Billett analyse the types of social partnerships that involve education in community contexts. They find that partnerships are complex and multi-layered and successful partnerships require: acknowledgement and negotiation of the...