The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global mobility of skilled workers and the usual patterns of interstate migration, resulting in Australia’s tightest labour market conditions in decades.
According to the National Skills Commission report, 31% of occupations – such as hands-on technicians and trades workers, machinery operators and drivers – are now in shortage compared with 19% in 2021.
In the tech sector alone, it is forecast that more than half a million new jobs will need to be created by 2030 in order to fill anticipated shortages in this critical industry.
Rob Bright is the CEO and founder of Cloud Assess, the market-leading provider of digital training and assessment software.
He says that in an economic climate where human talent is in high demand, but short supply, government and industry are being challenged to rethink their approaches to workforce skills training and development.
“This includes building Australia’s skills pipeline from high school. An extra 10,000 secondary students undertook vocational education and training in 2021, taking the total to 251,200,” Bright told The Educator.
“Importantly the way in which real-world skills training is delivered needs to engage the current generation of digital natives on the hand-held devices they’ve grown up with – smartphones and tablets – to make learning accessible. It also needs to foster deep learning that ‘sticks’ using a blend of online and face-to-face delivery supported by intuitive digital tools.”
Bright said technology has “a critical role to play as an enabler of more efficient, streamlined and deeper learning in the VET sector”.
“Cloud Assess enables schools and registered training organisations to deliver vocational course content and assessment in a single easy-to-use digital platform that gives them instant visibility of student progress, from enrolment to completion,” he said.
“All of our clients tell us they have compliance peace of mind using Cloud Assess because their records and process is transparent.”
Bright said the software allows for a more streamlined experience for training educators.
“Every time training educators sign-in to Cloud Assess they can see exactly what assessment their students have completed, what’s due, as well as comments from their teachers and trainers,” he said.
“Schools and RTOs can better track student progress and intervene more quickly to support those who may be falling behind to complete their qualifications.”
Bright said parents can also be granted third-party access to check on their child’s progress.
“By making the switch from paper-based processes to Cloud Assess, organisations have calculated a return on investment of $100:$1.00, cut administration tasks by more than 50% and saved 30 tonnes of paper in a typical year – a key sustainability outcome.”