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The roadmap is starting to emerge, both through analysis, the policy development process and extensive stakeholder consultation.
We suggest 8 priorities should guide the further development of the national jobs and skills roadmap:
- deep engagement with key partners and stakeholders
- close collaboration with key policy advising/policy making bodies and departments of government
- set ambitious goals/outcomes, such as the 3 strategic objectives for the Australian population as a whole and keep them in mind
- set and chart goals and milestones for how the national skills system and each of its 3 key pillars are seeking to contribute to these goals/outcomes
- ensure that Jobs and Skills Australia focuses strongly on the interoperability and complementarity of the component parts of the national skills system
- produce subsidiary roadmaps in priority areas (industry, regions and cohorts)
- chart progress against roadmap milestones
- ensure feedback loops and continue to enhance the evidence base.
Fourteen potential roadmap opportunities are presented to help facilitate this dialogue.
Potential roadmap opportunities
1. Identifying Australia’s top 20 persistent skill shortages and charting a joined-up approach to solving them, including the respective roles of a range of different levers such as:
- increasing the throughput of qualified workers by increasing intake and/or completion rates of relevant training and education pathways
- enhancing the attributes of graduates of VET and higher education by improving their employability skills and creating greater work experience opportunities
- working with employers and unions and governments to enhance job opportunities through better working conditions, including strategies to tackle gender imbalance in key skill shortage occupations
- supplementing the Australian workforce through well-targeted migration.
2. Continue the dialogue between Jobs and Skills Australia, the states and territories and Jobs and Skills Councils on a nationally consistent approach for labour market and skills forecasting, and improve the coherence of workforce planning across regions and industries.
3. Support the reform of the VET, higher education and migration systems by providing advice and analysis and monitoring achievement of progress against their objectives. This should be done in a way that highlights the synergies between the 3 reform processes.
4. Work with Jobs and Skills Councils to assess how the range of reforms implemented as a result of the National Skills Agreement, the Australian Universities Accord and migration reforms, help meet the skills needs of industry.
5. Identifying the top 10 examples of weak pathways between VET and higher education, where collaboration between VET and higher education, supported by Jobs and Skills Australia and Jobs and Skills Councils, in consultation with business and unions can create a stronger pipeline of skilled graduates.
6. Identifying VET qualifications which if completed alongside higher education qualifications would enhance graduate employability.
7. Supporting the existing process of VET qualifications reform to enhance the adaptability, resilience and employment prospects of VET graduates.
8. Identifying key enhancements in the evidence base that will assist the development of the roadmap and improve our ability to monitor its success, including in relations to the outcomes of learners and workers. For example, expanding the VET National Data Asset into the higher education sector.
9. Supporting the net zero transition challenge by charting a roadmap for education, training and migration to make that transition successful, in partnership with the new Net Zero Authority.
10. Shaping a national skills taxonomy in a collaborative partnership between business, unions, higher education and VET, and the Jobs and Skills Councils, to underpin more joined-up tertiary education system.
11. Develop a regional Australia jobs and skills roadmap to identify the key steps in enhancing regional Australia’s human capital in ways that will ensure success in meeting regional employment opportunities.
12. Co-create a First Nations workforce roadmap in partnership with First Nations people and with key partners in the national skills system.
13. Develop a roadmap for enhancing the prospects of international students playing a significant role in enhancing Australia’s skills profile as permanent migrants.
14. Establish a dialogue between Jobs and Skills Australia and the Productivity Commission to identify key elements of the national jobs and skills roadmap that will assist Australia’s productivity growth strategy.
In parallel, Jobs and Skills Australia will work with partners and stakeholders to progress a range of projects, outlined in our 2023–24 work plan, to enhance and expand the analysis and evidence to activate Australia’s skills potential. All projects will provide insights into at least one of the above 14 roadmap opportunities.