Continuity and change: employers’ training practices and partnerships with training providers

Characteristics of the respondents

Two-thirds of respondents were senior managers (Chief Executive Officer/Director/Managing Director, Other Senior Manager and Head of School/Department). Over 70% of the respondents identified themselves as a person who set up and/or managed partnerships within the organisation, with 50% of respondents both setting up and managing partnerships (Table 13).

Table 13 Partnership role

	TAFE		For-Profit		Non-Profit		All RTOs
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Set up and continue to manage partnerships	11	55.0	25	45.5	17	54.8	53	50.0
Those managing key partnerships report to me	7	35.0	4	7.3	6	19.4	17	16.0
Set up partnerships	1	5.0	9	16.4	3	9.7	13	12.3
Manage partnerships	0	0.0	7	12.7	2	6.5	9	8.5
Other	1	5.0	10	18.2	3	9.7	14	13.2
Total	20	100.0	55	100.0	31	100.0	106	100.0

Respondents in the ‘other’ category held various management and compliance roles related to partnerships or the organisation more generally.

All states and territories were represented. The largest percentages of responses were from RTOs with their head office based in Queensland (32%), Victoria (25%) and New South Wales (22%). Overall about half of the respondents were from metropolitan-based RTOs, with a higher proportion (56%) of the for-profit RTOs being metropolitan-based than the TAFE Institutes and non-profit RTOs (both 45%). In the ‘other’ category, of the 10 respondents (9%), six classified the organisation as both metropolitan and regional (state-wide or national), three as national and one as remote.

Geographical spread of training

79% of respondents reported training partnerships in their local area, 50% in other parts of their state, 42% in other states and 7% overseas (Table 14). In contrast to the private RTOs, the majority of TAFE Institutes had partnerships outside their local region, with 80% having partnerships in other parts of their state and 60% having partnerships in other jurisdictions. In contrast, less than half of the private RTOs reported partnerships in other parts of their state or in other states. The location(s) of international partners were identified by five of the seven respondents who indicated their RTO had partners overseas. Locations included Americas (n=1), China (n=3), Hong Kong (n=1), Korea (n=1), New Zealand/Australasian region (n=2), Qatar (n=1) and UK (n=1).

Table 14 RTO/Industry partner locations

	TAFE		For-Profit		Non-Profit		All RTOs
	N	%*	N	%*	N	%*	N	%*
Your local region	19	95.0	39	70.9	27	84.4	85	79.4
Other parts of your State	16	80.0	25	45.5	12	37.5	53	49.5
Other Australian States	12	60.0	24	43.6	9	28.1	45	42.1
Overseas countries	4	20.0	2	3.6	1	3.1	7	6.6
Total Respondents	20		55		32		107

Note: *Percentage of respondents

RTOs were asked to list up to three areas of training for which their organisation was best known, in terms of successful training partnerships, the vast majority of the TAFE Institutes identified three areas, indicating the diversity of partnerships for these RTOs. Examples included: agriculture/ aviation/ health and heath/ building and construction/ ICT. The private RTOs on the whole appeared more specialised, with many only identifying a single area they are best known for. Some of the private RTOs appeared to have highly specialised partnerships, such as RTOs that identified they are known solely for training in areas such as the dive industry, polymer processing and technology, and tyre fitting. Other private RTOs did identify more than one area, however, in most cases the areas were closely related, for example medicine, dentistry and nursing, and retail, food service and hospitality.