Project Rationale

While Australia’s resource and associated manufacturing industries significantly benefit the Australian economy, productivity is hindered by a shortage of suitably skilled labour. The geographical scattering of these industries and associated thin education markets make engineering and para-professional engineering programs unviable in many of these regions. This often results in locally specific VET offerings which struggle to adequately prepare students for Higher Education (HE). Capable students in regional areas have limited access to HE, often choosing trades pathways (Australian Workforce Productivity Agency, 2012). Articulation between VET and HE courses is often ‘piecemeal’ and candidates are hindered by cross-institutional barriers.

These circumstances are exacerbated by two issues. First, rapid innovation in these industries (e.g. robotics and sensors in large mining equipment) changes the skills required, calling for a flexible engineering curriculum and evolving skills pathways. Second, there is reluctance from industry (especially SMEs) to release workers for study because of loss of productivity. Industry is also often reluctant to train staff, preferring to recruit experienced workers.

These concerns, ever present in regional Australia, require innovative solutions. In response, this project utilises a regional development platform method (RDPM) which gathers and reconfigures resources and capabilities into a competitive platform to match and even create market change (Harmaakopi, 2007; 1087). RDPM is used as the tool to share and reconfigure resources and capabilities of three universities (USQ, Deakin, UTAS), the Geraldton University Centre and VET and industry to chart new trajectories for engineering education. By integrating, reconfiguring, sharing and releasing resources, the RDPM (Harmaakopi, 2007; 1087) generates a learning platform to create sustainable engineering education for thin markets.

The learning platform is a multi-partner solution comprising knowledge partnering around institutional resources including 1) curriculum, 2) student enrolment systems and 3) delivery systems (e.g. immersive environments and virtual classrooms). The Learning Platform for Engineering (LPE) project will negotiate a curriculum and enrolment sharing arrangement and deliver an online portal to manage cross-sectoral enrolment and certification of qualifications. Partners collaborate to resolve the curriculum and technical requirements necessary to build the learning platform to enable access and reduce the barriers that inhibit student learning and confidence.

The reconfiguration of shared resources and capabilities into a learning platform enables a student, regardless of location, to complete a flexible program of study better suited to local/regional industry and student need. The learning platform can generate guided learning pathways that effectively overcome institutional and student learning barriers often experienced because of thin markets in regional communities. A learning platform enables learning providers to be responsive to different cohorts of students in thin markets (e.g. mature age, first in family wanting a career outcome, those with trades qualifications able to access para-professional and professional skills, and industries in remote locations e.g. mining) and increase choice, currencyand the opportunity to experience different and specialised curriculum.[1]

The objectives of this project are:

• to improve access for students in regional areas across a range of age and cohort characteristics;
• to establish and grow viable student load in engineering courses in thin and dispersed markets;
• to provide greater choice of engineering pathways, specialisations and study options for students in regional areas;
• to collaborate across partner institutions to build a workable portfolio of units and flexible structures suited to thin and dispersed markets;
• to develop relevant, seamless and structured pathways to para-professional and professional engineering careers aligned with regional industries;
• to be linked into and responsive to regional industry skills needs, production systems and changing technologies;
• to set up a user friendly, shared access portal for cross-institutional enrolment and credit of units;
• to develop blended curriculum with industry components (e.g. work integrated units) recognised by all partners;

[1] For example, the new mining engineering and geosciences majors developed by USQ for the MINAD Project team as part of the government funded/Minerals Tertiary Education Council managed ‘Mining Industry National Associate Degrees’ (MINAD) project: http://www.mtec.org.au/blog/post/minad_vision_of_an_uninterrupted_sustainable_education_and_training_pathway