The Missing Link in Australian Tertiary Education: Short-Cycle Higher Education

Overview & Synopsis

The blurring of the boundary between Australian vocational education and training and higher education is leading to a reconsideration of the current structure of Australian tertiary education. This paper starts with the main overlap of the Australian tertiary education sectors, diplomas and advanced diplomas. The ambiguous treatment of these programs and Australia's unusually deep organisational separation of vocational education and training and higher education has made it difficult for governments to have an integrated tertiary education policy, and it has restricted vocational education and training's role. By comparing arrangements for the highest sub baccalaureate qualifications in Aotearoa New Zealand, North America and the UK, known generically as short-cycle higher education, the paper develops some new options for Australia. The paper concludes by arguing that Australia should follow North American and UK examples and decouple the institutional and programmatic designations of the sectors to allow vocational education and training institutes to offer unambiguously higher education programs.