Reform, Changes and transformation: A commentary on the Implementation and evolution of CBT

Abstract

The decision to implement a uniform program of competency-based training in Australia was founded on a belief that it could assist in making Australian workers more skilful and adaptable, and more able to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive global market. It was claimed that only through having a competent workforce would Australian enterprises become import-competing and export-oriented. However, it is clear that other goals, such as making educational institutions and educators more accountable were also on the agenda as key policy goals at this time. Those individuals (and institutions) who were to be responsible for the development and implementation of CBT were to be also subject to it. As the decade of CBT has advanced and the arena of vocational education has widened, the role of CBT has gone from reforming vocational education to managing the increasingly widening provision of vocational education through a diverse field of providers. This chapter reviews the significant body of literature on CBT and related matters and argues that the role of CBT in managing vocational education provisions has subsumed its primary educational purposes. Moreover, the role of CBT and its purposes within vocational education have been transformed during the decade of CBT. Supporters and critics are often divisible on the basis of what they see is the purpose of CBT. Particular sets of interests represent different viewpoints in the contested terrain of educational policy and practice. It is probably fair to say that nothing has divided the vocational education community so much as the implementation of CBT. From division can come healthy debate and progress, yet these qualities seem to be largely absent in the debate which has set institutions within VET against one another and marginalised professional discussion. One of the causalities in the decade of CBT has been tolerance to critical debate within VET. In this chapter, a discussion of the unfolding implementation of CBT is cast within a range of literature. Its focus is primarily on sources that have a basis of evidence or informed thought. Not well represented in this review are the views and ideas of the practitioners and policy-makers who worked to implement or resist the implementation of CBT. Some of these voices are captured in the empirical work accompanying this study.