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‘A degree is a degree’: understanding vocational institution’s bachelor degrees in Australia’s high participation system

The tertiary sector in Australia is undergoing profound change especially at the intersection between higher education and vocational education, with the role and contribution of vocational education subject to intense debate in this high participation system (Monash Commission, 2018). In this turbulent environment, traditional providers of higher education, such as universities, and vocational education and training colleges are working in new ways to increase access and participation to high skills by developing provision that spans the vocational and higher education divide (Webb et al., 2017). New providers, such as TAFES, are entering and innovating in the field of higher education. However, there is little research that looks at vocational institution provision of bachelor’s degrees and explores what it means for higher education, for vocational education, for equity for students and for preparing people for changing labour markets. In this Special Issue of the International Journal of Training Research, the papers’ authors have all been connected in some way with the Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project (DP170101885) ‘Vocational Institutions, Undergraduate Degrees: Distinction or Inequality’, a three-year national case study investigating every TAFE institution across Australia that had received approval to offer its own bachelor degrees. The project created a space for academics and practitioners to reflect on the nature of vocational and higher education when they came together to explore the practices of a novel form of the long-standing and esteemed bachelor’s degree qualification (Huggins et al., 2003). In Australia, following the ending of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) competitive grants scheme and the National VET Equity Advisory Council (NVEAC) grants system, the last ten years have seen a dearth of original, competitive, uncontracted research in Australia about vocational education. To our knowledge, the research discussed in this special issue has been derived from one of a very small number of ARC Discovery Projects which has had a vocational education focus and, it was only the second Australian Research Council funded project focusing explicitly on vocational education provision and institutions after Professor Erica Smith’s Linkage project (ARC – LP140100044) alongside this Journal’s editor Roger Harris and other colleagues. The wider context for this issue is that the education field in Australia has had a longstanding minor position in terms of the award of research funding (Graham & Buckley, 2014). Moreover, in recent years there have been further falls in the success of education as a broader discipline in the competitive Australian Research Council funding schemes (Sullivan & Tippett, 2020). Over the last decade there has been a 5% success rate for projects with the field of research 13 (Education) compared to the average for all FoR INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAINING RESEARCH 2020, VOL. 18, NO. 2, 93–100 https://doi.org/10.1080/14480220.2021.1883839