Research lists potential ways employers could help boost workplace performance
Education and skills play a vital role in productivity development, benefitting both the individual and society, and the Productivity Commission’s (PC) latest interim report demonstrated how employers and HR could help boost Australia’s education and training system.
Despite several efforts to increase funding in schools, foundational skills – including writing and numeracy – remain stagnated, according to PC’s media release.
It further reported that employment rates for university and VET graduates and employer satisfaction with the quality of VET graduates have declined over recent years.
“With Australia now well and truly a service economy, demand for non-routine skills is at an all-time high,” PC Deputy Chair Dr. Alex Robson said. “This means a strong foundation from schooling is even more important than for past generations.”
Improving the education and skills sector
Based on PC’s interim report, “5 Year Productivity Inquiry: From learning to growth,” schools should concentrate on assessing measures to boost the quality of teaching, such as freeing up teachers to devote more time inside the classroom and implementing proven technology or new approaches to schooling to satisfy the needs of staff and students.
Meanwhile, for VET and higher education, Robson noted that the emphasis should not only be on what to teach, but “how to teach it.”
“It could also be beneficial to explore current funding structures that distort the choices of students in favour of universities over VET, limit competition between providers, and restrict the number of available student places,” Robson said.
As the demands on the nature of skills constantly evolve, the report also noted the need for post-school education and lifelong learning throughout a worker’s lifetime.
Thus, in addition to steps undertaken by the government, employers are encouraged to invest in eligible training courses, especially in upskilling and reskilling, for their workers to remain competitive.
“The solution isn’t just simply to provide more places; the answer is also to ensure that our education system can deliver improved and relevant skills,” Robson said.
According to the report, most VET non-completers cited employment-related reasons for leaving the study, such as poor relations with their manager or colleagues and other individual circumstances.
Such findings only further strengthened the need for employers and businesses to give students, especially in the tertiary sector, a greater opportunity to follow through with their individual goals and become more efficient and productive, the commission said in its report.
“Nobody can predict what some of the specific jobs of the future will look like,” Robson said. “That is why an agile and adaptable education system is so essential for driving future productivity gains.”
