Support NSW Outreach Curriculum

Outreach has been developing replacement curriculum due to the existing suite of courses being due for accreditation. The Access & General Education Curriculum Centre has developed a competency based framework that mimics a National Training Package for delivery of programs to all Access and General Education students including ESOL, ABE (Lit and numeracy), LOTE, CGVE and TPC, Communications and Media and all equity areas.

While this huge endeavour has brought these courses more in line with Training Packages and competency based learning and outcomes, the existing framework will not effectively cater to the community engagement needs of Outreach target groups (i.e. the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups in the community). In particular the Skills for Work and Training (SWT) suite of courses which was supposed to cater to the needs of Outreach students will be inadequate for the range of reasons noted below.

Outreach now have a new draft suite of courses and the need for these came out of extensive research, consultation with community, industry and government department partners and as a result of NSW Outreach Coordinators Consensus. The new courses are:

1. SoA in Vocational and Community Engagement (SOA VCE)
2. Certificate I in Vocational and Community Engagement (Cert I VCE)
3. Course in Vocational and Community Engagement (Course In VCE)

The need for specific Outreach (OR) courses in the framework is set out in the points below:

1. Ongoing provision of OR programs to target group (21,800 enrolments) via OR VCE suite

2. Target groups
These courses are designed to meet the needs of people who are experiencing multiple dimensions of exclusion (Frieler, 2001). The target groups comprise people with multiple and cumulative disadvantage including refugees, people experiencing intergenerational unemployment, offenders, ex-offenders, men and women who are socially, economically geographically and culturally isolated and excluded, the mature long term unemployed, disengaged youth, people with disabilities and people with no or minimal formal education.

Another target group especially for delivery of the Course in VCE are community volunteers, community, education and corporate/industry based workers/educators, students seeking access to community service and community education pathways, students with low confidence and doubt in own knowledge and skills wishing to access tertiary education. This group who may or may not fit into one or more of the above main target groups, may wish to achieve outcomes that will enable them to contribute to their community as volunteers, build community capacity and/or gain vocational knowledge and skills for further education and employment purposes.

3. The curriculum needs for target groups are not catered for in the current AEET F'wk where the main emphasis is on Skills for Work and Training (SWT). Despite Community Participation being a 'core' outcome of SWT it is not reflected in the title of the qualifications nor in the current unit offering. These courses cater to students who are more study/work ready and can be guided more quickly or fast tracked into skill shortage areas and associated training. The VCE suite involves a different and often longer process because of the different target group.

4. Each of the courses has a Core unit: Contribute to group goal setting. This sets VCE apart and is vital to students owning their learning, having choices and taking responsibility as well as determining goals collaboratively. These are good skills for community engagement, participation and further education and employment.

5. VCE outcomes are also longer term, and the sustainable outcomes such as lifelong and lifewide learning skills add value to many aspects of a student's life. This has flow on effects to their families and cultural, local and wider communities. The VCE suite also provides outcomes such as second chance education and opportunities to explore the range of voc and further education options available and for students to get hands-on experience in these industries and fields.

6. The vocational and community outcomes are not achieved in isolation of each other and thus the requirement that for each course at least one unit from these groups be included in the course.

7. The Course in VCE has many applications for both target groups especially organisations and departmental staff who work with the community in some capacity.

8. The SWT core outcome of articulation into further education and training is not necessarily a major outcome for all VCE courses. Employment is not a viable outcome for all Outreach students, nor in some regions of NSW is employment a likelihood but this should not preclude them from gaining knowledge and skills that enable them to participate more effectively in their society. Volunteering is a valid outcome for primary carers (full time parents), mature aged unemployed and retired citizens and for some students with disabilities, chronic health issues or drug and alcohol addiction. For Outreach students volunteering in the community is often regarded as a 'safer' more accessible option than paid employment. Often however students acquire in their volunteering experience valuable vocational and employability skills and gain paid employment. This outcome is even more important with the ageing of the Australian workforce and population (especially when many mature unemployed people see themselves as too old to learn or work) and is why validation of life experience and existing skills and life-long and life-wide learning skills are such important outcomes.

9. Given that two thirds of people find employment via networking (“Find a job: future directions”, DEST 2003) there is particular merit in the emphasis on the development of personal and wider networks outcomes.