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Intersectoral Articulation and QualityAssessment in Australian HigherEducationBarry Golding aa University of Melbourne , Victoria, AustraliaPublished online: 10 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Barry Golding (1995) Intersectoral Articulation and Quality Assessment inAustralian Higher Education, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 20:1, 89-103, DOI:10.1080/0260293950200110

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Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 20, No. I, 1995 89

Intersectoral Articulation and QualityAssessment in Australian Higher Education

BARRY GOLDING, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

ABSTRACT Findings of recent Australian research demonstrate that student articula-tion into Technical and Further Education (TAFE) from previous higher educationbackgrounds (both as graduates and non-graduates) is more common than assumed, andat levels considerably higher than better known and widely promoted technical to highereducation articulation. An exploration is made into the nature and levels of thisbi-directional student movement, as well as of ways of assessing and measuring themovement. Implications and explanations are proposed of this phenomenon of reciproc-ity of articulation between technical and higher education. An illustration is provided ofways in which post-secondary students are using less standard and less well-identifiedarticulation pathways, in larger numbers, without encouragement, advice or assistance,and in the relative absence of formal credit transfer arrangements. It is argued that anumber of assumptions inherent in current statistical measures of articulation and credittransfer need to be redefined to take better account of the way in which students areactually accessing and using intersectoral pathways, and of the motivational factorsassociated with student choice to return to, or continue to study. New models areproposed which better explain the phenomenon of higher to technical educationarticulation, both for higher education graduates and discontinuing students. It issuggested that retraining, retrenchment, academic and vocational credentialism andelevated levels of graduate unemployment are impacting significantly on choices toreturn to study in higher and technical education across a range of institutional types,course types and discipline areas for different student cohorts. A case is presented forthe provision of better information to graduates as well as to discontinuing students onwhat has been studied and assessed, whether a course has been completed or not. A caseis also presented for better policies and mechanisms which allow for credit transfer onsubsequent, often much later, return to study.

Introduction

In Australia the term 'higher education' "refers to all institutions offering educationand/or professional training to at least first-degree level" (DEET/OECD, 1993, p. 13).

0260-2938/95/010089-15 ©1995 Journals Oxford Ltd

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90 B. Golding

The whole range of post-secondary education is referred to as "tertiary education". Mostrecent research and policy initiatives in post-secondary educational articulation inAustralia have focused on intersectoral transition from the technical education (inAustralia, Technical and Further Education or TAFE) system to higher education. Fromthis point the term 'technical education' refers specifically to the Australian Technicaland Further Education (TAFE) system. Much previous attention has gone into improvingcredit transfer arrangements from technical to higher education, on the widely heldassumption that it is desirable to encourage an 'upward', essentially unidirectionalmobility of students, on what are assumed to be mainstream, linear, sequential articula-tion 'pathways' from technical to higher education.

The initiative for this effort has come from government, union and professionalbodies, arguing for improvements to efficiency, effectiveness, convenience and socialequity, as well as for industry restructure based on assessment of competencies. Theperceived need for improved articulation has been accelerated by a massive increase inthe total number of students in Australian higher education over a short period (from350,000 in 1981 to over 580,000 in 1991: DEET/OECD, 1993, p. 13), a massive andgrowing demand for public post-compulsory education, very recent government-initiatedattempts to improve quality in higher education in Australia and attempts to achieveparity of esteem for the vocational education and training sector (DEET/OECD, 1993,p. 16).

Credit transfer, assessment of prior informal learning (in Australia called RPL:recognition of prior learning) and measurement of the success of intersectoral articula-tion and credit transfer are seen as important aspects of quality assurance. Initiatives forassessing and evaluating quality of post-secondary articulation have been based onimprovements measured by statistical indicators premised on the assumptions outlinedabove; that is, on the number of students admitted to higher education with a 'technicaleducation background' or with 'technical education studies as a basis for admission' onlevels of credit granted to students with technical education backgrounds, as well as onthe number of potential credit transfer pathways available between individual technicaleducation and higher education courses.

In the absence of research to the contrary, it has previously been assumed thatuniversity to technical education articulation occurs less commonly than higher edu-cation to TAFE articulation. The phenomenon rates only a few sentences in thevoluminous literature in Australia on post-secondary credit transfer since Parkinson et al.(1986). There are at least three widely held assumptions embedded or constructed withinexisting literature and models of credit transfer, which fail to account for what is seento be occurring amongst students on post-secondary credit transfer pathways. The firstrelates to the nature and direction of the articulation processes, the second to therationale for equity, and the third to the basis on which students seek admission topost-secondary education.

Attempts to improve quality must take account of pathways out of sectors, institutionsand courses as well as pathways in, both for graduates and non-graduates. It is seen astimely to take up the challenge posed in 1992 by Professor I.W. Chubb, as Chair of theAustralian Higher Education Council, who asked "What should the transfer to TAFEfrom higher education be? Have we thought seriously about transfer in this direction? Isit time we thought of articulation and credit transfer in which the TAFE component wasa topping off with the particular, dare I say, more vocationally orientated skills? Perhapsit is time now to focus on these issues." The discussion which follows aims to alert

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Intersectoral Articulation and Quality Assessment in Australian HE 91

post-secondary education practitioners to the phenomenon of higher education totechnical education articulation and to better ways of characterising, measuring, assess-ing and managing the quality of intersectoral educational transition and transfer.

Background to Post-secondary Articulation Pathways in Australia

Marginson (1993, p. 6) notes that in standard education policy terminology in Australia,formal education is divided into two parts; "an education sector in schools and highereducation, and a training sector in TAFE and private industry". Pyle (1988, p. 176),however, suggests that "There is no fundamental difference between education andtraining; both are about the acquisition of knowledge and skills which can be appliedconceptually". Marginson also questions the basis of this distinction between educationand training, and notes that with the expansion of post-school education in the last threedecades, the professional/para-professional divide between technical education andhigher education courses has become even more blurred.

The blurring of these sectoral boundaries has highlighted the perceived need toprovide a so-called 'seamless' education system, with transfer mechanisms which allowstudents to articulate across what were previously seen as highly stratified education andtraining sectors. There is currently a strong political imperative to match skills withindustrial needs and to create what Free (1993, p. 7) calls a "greater convergencebetween school, vocational education and training and universities—not to create ahomogeneity between the elements of the system, but to make learning a lifelong processand to create a genuine parity of esteem between education and training".

The theoretical notions of 'lifelong learning' and 'recurrent education' had becomeestablished in the 1970s (Faure, 1972). Barnett et al. (1979) saw these notions asstrategies for arranging educational inputs over the lifespan to achieve outputs whichwould be both more personally satisfying to the individual, more economically efficient,and more socially equitable. Barnett et al. argued for an enhanced ability for people tomove in and out of work and education without penalty, and noted that "The ability toalternate in this way is greatly expedited, perhaps dependent on, the provision of formalmechanisms of alternation".

To date most of the emphasis on improving models and methods of post-secondaryeducational alternation has been restricted to attempts since 1984 to improve educationalarticulation within and between the TAFE 'training' and the higher 'education' sectors,although some effort has recently gone into recognition of prior informal learning (RPL)in technical education, and very recently in higher education. Most of the emphasis hasbeen on cross-sectoral credit transfer from technical education to higher education(Parkinson et al., 1986; Lewis, 1991; NBEET, 1992a). The stated and unstated assump-tion has been of a one-way, upward movement from technical education to highereducation.

The TAFE Pathways Projects were set up in Victorian universities in 1993 with thestated aim of establishing arrangements leading to enhanced access of technical edu-cation students into higher education programmes, with reciprocal opportunities forhigher education students to move into TAFE programmes. During the course of theseprojects some new credit transfer arrangements were identified from higher education totechnical education, particularly at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT,1993), Victoria University of Technology (VUT, 1993), The University of Melbourne(Wallace & Carruthers, 1993) and at the University of Ballarat (Golding & Eedle, 1993).

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92 B. Golding

Theoretical Underpinnings on the Nature and Direction of Articulation

The three widely held assumptions referred to in the Introduction are challenged in thediscussion which follows. The first assumption, of a primary focus on 'upward mobility'from training in technical education to degrees in university, is entirely consistent withthe notion that goes with the name 'higher education'. The credit transfer agreements areinvariably written on the assumption that students are choosing to attempt and/orcomplete study or education in one sector, in order to, immediately, or at least soonafter, transfer 'upwards' to study in another 'higher' sector. It is widely assumed thatstudent movement is linear (between similar fields of study), sequential (from one coursedirectly to another) and upward (into hierarchically 'higher' forms of education). Thereis an implied and largely untested theoretical assumption that students intentionallyaccess and exit articulation pathways and use them in a linear, sequential, upwardmanner, not unlike riding a series of upward, one-way conveyors.

The second widely held assumption is that creation and promotion of articulationpathways that might be available between specific courses will lead to actual increasesin access and equity for individual students who use these pathways, as well as increasedopportunity for use of such pathways. This assumption is difficult to argue in the contextof zero growth in many post-secondary sectors, and recent Australian Governmentpressure to increase the proportion of school leavers entering higher education. Wallace& Carruthers have noted that identification of credit transfer pathways without theallocation of an adequate number of places "will create frustration in the system, ratherthan opportunities. Expectations will be created and pathway pressure will develop"(1993, p. 14).

The third methodological assumption is that it is sufficient to measure the extent ofarticulation on the premise that a student has only one previous post-secondaryeducational background, and that this background is the one which was used as a basisto seek admission. Much of the research into post-secondary articulation ignores thewidespread phenomenon of educational and vocational credentialism. Burke (1992, p.76) has noted that "a considerable proportion of persons in technical education andhigher education are undertaking second or further courses, including postgraduatecourses and higher degrees. Of persons aged 15 to 64 attending tertiary institutions inMay 1991, 41 per cent had already obtained a qualification; 38 per cent of highereducation students, 40 per cent of TAFE students and 55 per cent of those in othereducation." Burke concluded that "The large number of students aged over 30 and thelarge number of students seeking a second or third qualification" has a significant impacton planning tertiary enrolment targets for particular age cohorts, and very significantresource implications.

Theoretical Underpinnings on the Rationales for Equity and Efficiency

The intuitive power of arguments for credit transfer lies at the intersection of argumentsabout economic efficiency and social equity. In 1987 the Australian Higher EducationPolicy: A Discussion Paper (Green Paper, 1987, p. 39) was arguing for improvementsto credit transfer practice on the grounds of inconsistency of current practice. Argumentshinged around notions of fairness, perceptions of the desirability of knowing in advancewhat credit would be received on articulation, the principle of equal treatment by similarinstitutions of students with similar study backgrounds, and the principle that previouspost-secondary studies and current competencies should not be repeated.

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Intersectoral Articulation and Quality Assessment in Australian HE 93

By 1992 a number of aspects of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC)rationale for support of credit transfer initiatives included arguments about economicefficiency, including reduction in costs to government (and therefore the community)from unnecessary repeat studies, acceleration of moves towards multi-skilling and wageaward restructuring, as well as a perceived need to develop clear educational pathwaysparalleling emerging career pathways in industry (AVCC, 1992, p. 4). By that time theuniversities were becoming more aware of the connection between credit transfer andissues raised by distance education and open learning initiatives, of the growing body ofresearch documenting overall lower attrition and higher success of students enteringhigher education from other post-secondary studies, and of the attractiveness of later yeartransfers in the milieu of a higher education system so dependent on fluctuations indemand by school leavers.

Fulton's (1981, p. 168) description of the UK situation in 1981 reasonably closelyresembles the Australian situation in 1994. He observes that higher education institu-tions, perhaps instinctively, "see student demand as a defence—perhaps their onlydefence—against cuts. It is likely, therefore, that whatever policy is imposed on them,they will try to attract as many applicants as possible, even if only to demonstrateunsatisfied demand." The notion of tapping into the articulating, mature-age studentmarket might be seen as "at the least, an insurance policy, and ideally, a relief columnarriving at the siege" (Fulton, 1981, p. 168), as the Australian universities vie for marketniches in what the National Board of Employment Education and Training (NBEET,1993) describes as the aftermath of the latest round of institutional amalgamations andthe demise of the Colleges of Advanced Education.

Theoretical Underpinnings of Measures of Articulation

A number of statistical tags and indicators have been identified and used to monitor andevaluate articulation of students and the success of technical to higher education credittransfer. Students moving into university in Australia are tagged as having 'technicaleducation background', 'technical education as a basis for admission' and the levels ofcredit granted to such students with technical education backgrounds are subsequentlymonitored. The two tags are derived from data provided by students at the time ofenrolment. The levels of credit are derived some time later, after credit transferapplications have been processed.

These indicators of post-secondary education articulation suffer from a number oftheoretical and practical shortcomings, and must be regarded as rough guides only as towhat is occurring. There is no necessary connection between students with a technicaleducation background (who have been enrolled in a technical education award at sometime in their lives) and 'technical education award as a basis for admission' (studentswho ticked 'technical education award' as one of 11 options for 'basis for admission tothis course', arranged hierarchically from higher education down), given the currentlyhigh levels of post-secondary credentialism and subsequent postgraduate enrolment.'Level of credit granted to students with technical education backgrounds' suffers froma range of serious problems, in part because the credit such students receive in highereducation does not necessarily derive from technical education experience. The net resultis a likely underestimation of the total credit at the reporting date, but an overstatementof credit directly related to technical education articulation. In addition, the level ofcredit granted may differ quite considerably between institutions.

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94 B. Golding

Until Golding (1993) there had been no attempt to define or collate data on studentswith 'higher education background', 'higher education as a basis for admission' or'levels of credit granted to students with higher education background' for technicaleducation commencers. The first indicator can be derived from questions alreadyroutinely asked at enrolment in technical education. In the absence of questions aboutbasis for admission into technical education and without collation of credit transferrecords, the other indicators cannot be simply derived or easily compared with existingdata on articulation into higher education.

Even if data were readily available, tags and indicators in both sectors (whether theyare applied to higher education or to technical education commencers) incorporate theassumption that technical education or higher education background has been completedin order to, and soon afterwards, transfer to another sector, and that in effect students areaccessing logical, sequential pathways. There is a need to examine these assumptionsmore closely and to find more appropriate statistical indicators of articulation, particu-larly if articulation is to form part of quality assessment.

Models and Motivations for Students on Post-secondary Articulating Pathways

If there is a wide range of institutional and government rationales for articulation, thereis perhaps a wider range of situations, experiences and circumstances which motivateadults to move across post-secondary educational boundaries. Post-secondary articulationoccurs in essentially two different ways, within institutions and sectors (intrasectoral)and between sectors (intersectoral).

The commonest forms of post-secondary articulation and credit transfer in Australiaare intrasectoral; that is, from university to university and technical education totechnical education. The 1993 Graduate Careers Council of Australia Graduate Desti-nation Survey (GCCA, 1994, pp. 12-13) included, for the first time, a question askinghigher education graduates if they received any credit or advanced standing towards thecourse they completed. Some 20% (9007 out of 44,976) of 1993 first-degree universitygraduate respondents to the GCCA survey received some credit or advanced standingtowards the course they completed. Only 13% of these respondents (1176) receivedcredit as a result of a technical education course. Extrapolation to the total surveypopulation of Australian graduates in 1993 suggests that approximately 3000 graduatesreceived credit in higher education on the basis of technical education.

In effect 87% of the credit that 1993 university graduates had received during theircourses was gained on the basis of study at institutions other than technical education(56%) or for other reasons (31%). It is likely that the majority of this credit wouldhave been obtained on the basis of prior university-level studies, often from the sameuniversity or related university course they transferred to or recommenced study at.

Available Australian technical education statistics indicate a similar situation withintechnical education; that is that intrasectoral credit transfer is more common than highereducation to technical transfer. There are no readily available data on credit transferwithin the TAFE sector. However, Dawe's (1993) Australian TAFE Graduate Surveyindicates that 14% of TAFE graduates received credit on the basis of study within TAFE,and only 4% for study at another institution.

Intersectoral transfer falls into two broad categories. On one hand there are studentswho (for a range of reasons) do not successfully complete a course or field of study inone sector and who move to another course or field in another sector. On the other, there

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Intersectoral Articulation and Quality Assessment in Australian HE 95

are students who have completed an award in one field and who have commencedanother course in the same or a different field which crosses sectoral boundaries.

A number of published case studies in Australia have monitored progress andperformance of relatively small cohorts of students who have moved from a technicaleducation background to higher education in individual institutions (Bardsley & Pauley,1987; Hribar & Heazlewood, 1991; Lewis, 1991; McPhee, 1988; Quirk, 1988; Cobbin& Barlow, 1993). Such studies have confirmed that former technical education studentsdo academically at least as well as other university students enrolled in the same studyprogrammes.

Cobbin & Barlow (1993, p. 37) have summarised some of the methodologicalproblems commonly associated with such studies, including incomplete data, problemswith definition of admission basis and samples so small that confident analysis ofparticular sub-groups of students by course and subject are not feasible. Another otherproblem identified by Cobbin & Barlow is associated with using attrition as a measureof institutional performance. In many cases one sector's or institution's articulationsuccess is another sector's or institution's transfer or attrition failure. Students clearlycross sectoral, institutional, course or disciplinary boundaries for many reasons otherthan inability to cope with studies. Without information on student intentions atcommencement and at discontinuation, it is very difficult and perhaps misleading toassess articulation 'success' or 'failure' on the basis of numbers alone.

It is similarly misleading for higher education institutions to measure articulation'success' solely on the basis of success at promoting the transition by students fromtechnical education into higher education. The recommendation by Cobbin & Barlow(1993, p. 39) that "TAFE transfer students should be encouraged to partake of highereducation since they represent a valuable source of suitably prepared students" has itsobverse in higher education to technical education articulation, and raises a number ofimportant questions. They include the question of whether higher education studentsshould also be encouraged to partake of technical education since they represent avaluable source of suitably prepared students. If students are successfully encouraged tocross sectoral boundaries and follow either of these post-secondary pathways, what arethe implications for quality for the institutions and for the students themselves? Inlow-growth or no-growth situations, are students from higher education displacingtechnical education's more traditional clientele? To what extent, if any, are students withhigher education backgrounds preferred in technical education?

Other Models

As already indicated, the validity and usefulness of both the model and the phenomenonof higher education to technical education articulation has been briefly dismissed orignored in the literature to date, in contrast with the considerable attention given totechnical education to higher education articulation, and more recently to secondaryschool (Year 12) to technical education articulation. Sweet (1992, p. 5) has observed thatthe Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee's inclination to control credit transfer'machinery' suggests a model in which technical education would remain a supplicantrather than partner, raising the question "of whether the goal of increased credit transferis a sufficient basis for a mature term relationship between the sectors".

Golding (1993), and Golding & Eedle (1993) have undertaken some preliminaryanalyses of pathways out of Victorian universities (as graduates and as non-graduates).

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96 B. Golding

Golding (1994a) estimates that levels of articulation out of universities into technicaleducation currently far exceed articulation into universities from technical education.The National Board of Employment, Education and Training (NBEET) would seem notto have grasped what appears to be occurring. NBEET (1993, pp. 127-128) explainswhat it describes as the "lower level of activity in regard to credit transfer fromuniversity to TAFE [as] more a matter of low demand for places than it is one ofsupplying places". NBEET regards neither of the two kinds of credit transfer intotechnical education from university (as discontinuing non-graduating and as graduates)to be "yet common", although it notes (p. 11) that statistics on transfers other thantechnical education to higher education, such as higher education to technical educationor transfer within technical education, are not so readily accessible.

Data that can be derived on this so-called 'reverse' intersectoral articulation are likelyto undernumerate the extent of higher education to technical education transfer, as thereis a relatively high non-response rate to such information at enrolment in technicaleducation. However, available data from a number of Australian states in 1992 indicatethat approximately two out of 10 students commencing at TAFE Associate Diploma,Advanced Certificate or Certificate level had previously been enrolled in a university,one of whom was a university graduate. The phenomenon is most marked in fields ofstudy where there is overlap between TAFE initial vocational Streams 3300-3600 anduniversity undergraduate courses, such as in business and engineering (Sweet, 1992, p.8). The numbers of articulating commencers are highest at Certificate award level, butcomprise the highest proportion of commencers in higher level TAFE awards (such asDiploma and Associate Diploma). The numbers of higher education to technicaleducation articulation students are high. In Victorian TAFEs between 1990 and 1992approximately one in five, or approximately 35,000 commencers at Associate Diplomaand Advanced Certificate levels, had previously studied in a university, half of those asgraduates.

Golding (1994a) has attempted to compare the magnitude of shifts between post-sec-ondary educational sectors in Australia in 1991, and has estimated that approximatelyfive times as many persons with previous university experience are commencing studiesin technical education initial vocational courses (Streams 3300-3500) as are commenc-ing higher education on the basis of previous technical education studies. In most higherlevel technical education courses, university graduates outnumber students with at-tempted but not completed university backgrounds.

Preliminary research (Golding 1994b) based on a study of Royal Melbourne Instituteof Technology (RMIT) TAFE commencers with previous higher education backgroundshas indicated that motivational factors associated with higher education to technicaleducation articulation are likely to be associated with quite diverse reasons. The mainones are:

to gain vocationally specific training after an incomplete attempt at a highereducation award, or after completing a generalist degree;to develop industry links or update practical skills or qualifications in an existingfield or job;to retrain or change vocational direction in a new field after career changes,unemployment or job availability;because of an attraction for the location and/or multi-sectoral nature of the technicaleducation institution;

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Intersectoral Articulation and Quality Assessment in Australian HE 97

• because of the relatively low cost of the technical education course and the absenceof a higher education contribution scheme charge (HECS).

The reasons that some students discontinued at university in the first place are somewhatdifferent. The most common reasons for discontinuation provided by such students isthat:

• the student was uncertain and/or immature at the time of an attempt at universitystudies;

• the course was not enjoyable, interesting, relevant, practical or vocationally useful;• the mode of teaching was not suitable and/or the learning environment was

uncomfortable;• the course was too expensive;• the student got a job before finishing the course;• the student was experiencing difficulties associated with circumstances of a personal

nature.

Research is continuing in three other technical education institutions in Victoria toestablish models and motivations for discontinuation and articulation in these circum-stances.

Implications for Policy

The phenomenon of students moving in large numbers from backgrounds in highereducation to technical education calls for explanations, models and policies other thansimple reverse hierarchical ones. The model for university non-graduates is perhaps morestraightforward than for graduates, since without any initial completed credential, formeruniversity students would find it hard to keep or get a job of their choosing. However,the phenomenon of university graduates moving with considerable prior universityexperience in large numbers into technical education lends support to a number oftentative observations on the basis of observed trends, with a number of implications forpolicy.

The first general observation is that the phenomenon of university graduates undertak-ing continuing professional education is not new. University graduates have for a numberof years moved into vocational postgraduate courses such as graduate diplomas aftercompletion of their undergraduate studies. The combination of generalist and job-specifictraining has long been recognised as one ideal form of vocational preparation (Margin-son, 1994). What has changed is the ability of a significantly larger body of suchgraduates, particularly those generalist graduates with lower level passes from lowerstatus institutions, to go easily into job-specific, postgraduate training in higher educationthat leads directly or immediately to work in that field.

Marginson (1994) considers that these changes have greatly exacerbated the problemsof transition from generalist higher education courses to employment. Lyon (1992) hasdocumented what Marginson (1994, p. 7) describes as ambiguous connections betweeneducation and work for all graduates, but particularly for graduates with degrees withoutwell-defined occupational objectives. Lyon suggests that "the first four years aftergraduation are a period of transition and change, characterised by varieties of short-termemployment, vocational study, interspersed by periods of voluntary or involuntaryemployment, which together make up the process of trying to find more desirable work"(p. 130).

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98 B. Golding

Golding's (1994b) RMIT study indicates that technical education commencers withone completed degree and no other attempted study have a mean age of 30 years, andthose with multiple completed university awards a mean age of 35 years. Marginsonobserves that many generalist graduates enrol in a vocational postgraduate course sometime after completion of their undergraduate studies. He suggests that "because of theimplications for the generalist arts/humanities, social science and natural science streams,priority should be given to the development of one and two year post-graduate coursesin higher education" or, more broadly, to consideration of "a 2 + 2 model (two yearsgeneral education, two years vocational education) across a wide range of fields ofstudy" (p. 130).

In the absence of such models on the ground in higher education in Australia, andwithout widespread recognition of the need for employment-related transferable skills inundergraduate higher education courses, many university graduates are turning to higherlevel technical education courses for such vocational training, some time after discontin-uing or finishing a three-year degree. Some providers outside higher education are wellaware of this phenomenon. A recent advertisement in the Melbourne Age (for HolmesCollege, a private provider) on 9 April 1994 asks "Got your degree. Now what? It's asad fact that for many companies, a degree simply isn 't enough. They need practicalskills before they can offer you the best job."

The second general observation is that there is already less difference on the marginsbetween technical and higher education than many people recognise. Stevenson (1988,p. 137), argues that "The separation of education for work from education for academicpursuits is becoming increasingly artificial in the face of ... changes in society and theworkplace". Marginson (1993) observes that both universities and technical educationprovide generalist educational as well as vocational courses, which further blurs theprofessional-para-professional divide between technical education and higher educationcourses. Increases in participation in education combined with high levels of retrench-ment, retraining and unemployment are likely to be associated with high current levelsof vocational as well as educational credentialism. Marginson (1993) also notes thatadvanced educational qualifications are no longer good enough to guarantee access togood jobs or any jobs at all. It would seem that the phenomenon is in many ways aflow-on effect of Year 10-12 school students' unrealistically high expectations for auniversity education and professional career (DEET, 1993).

The desire of students to proceed to university was seen by the DEET study in NewSouth Wales (1993) to be inextricably linked to their employment aspirations. Over halfof the Year 10-12 school students were aspiring to professional occupations, yet onlyone in seven occupations in the Australian workforce is classified as 'professional'. Insituations where aspirations for university study are significantly out of line withoccupations in the workforce, it is not surprising to find students subsequently movingto alternative, more vocational 'lower' aspirations, either after graduating, attemptingand failing or partly completing a higher education course. In a milieu of increasedcompetition for the most sought-after places in higher education, high levels of unmetdemand (at least until 1993) for higher education, and an ongoing need for training andretraining, it is not surprising to find people with or without other credentials, with orwithout employment, completing some or all of a wide range of vocational qualificationsin technical education.

The phenomenon of articulation between higher education and technical education (inboth directions) raises the policy question as to what extent public funds should be usedfor additional qualifications. NBEET (1992b, p. 45) takes the view that, in general,

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students who have already completed one university or one technical education courseshould be required to make a greater contribution to the cost of a further course at otherthan higher degree level. NBEET considers that this principle would not apply in thecase of students articulating from technical education to higher education, and in certain(unspecified) cases where students transfer from higher education to technical education.

Implications for Post-secondary Institutions

There are a number of benefits for technical institutions which proactively encouragehigher education to technical education articulation in a manner similar to the encourage-ment of postgraduate study in higher education at graduate diploma level. The benefitsare likely to be more achievable in multi-sectoral institutions or in situations wherehigher education institutions are able to forge close links with technical education.Higher level technical courses such as Associate Diplomas can attract high-qualitystudents, particularly graduates, who are changing or widening their skills base. Ifwell-developed and well-publicised credit transfer mechanisms were put in place, highereducation graduates or non-graduates would be likely to contribute substantial numbersto technical education class sizes, particularly in the second year of courses depleted bynormal attrition.

There are, however, a number of potential problems posed by promotion of highereducation to technical education articulation for institutions. The numbers (and percent-ages) of potential technical education commencers and the proportion of graduates tonon-graduates are volatile annually, and related to the availability of employment andalternative study opportunities for graduates as well as non-graduates. Former highereducation students admitted to technical education will in some cases compete withschool leavers for places, which may lead to imposition of quotas if higher educationcommencers are not adversely to affect other potential commencers. Students who areadmitted with credit might in some cases move into already established groups withlesser practical skill, into classes with small numbers of mature-age students and intoradically different teaching and learning situations. Where technical education coursesare used as alternatives to failed university courses, students might lack the maturity orcommitment to complete the course.

From a technical education institutional point of view, however, there are opportuni-ties in alerting students to the possibilities of higher education to technical articulation.Promotion of the phenomenon has the potential to enhance the relatively poor image oftechnical education and individual technical institutions by providing integrated andversatile study pathways which with the cooperation of universities can be refined to suitthe needs of students and the workplace.

From the student's individual perspective, a technical education course after universityprovides a wide range of flexible opportunities to gain vocationally specific training,often after a generalist university education. It also has the potential to provide apractical, structured course, either as a 'second chance' for relatively young students(mean age 22) after truncation by non-completion of a university course, or some yearslater (between age 30 and 35), after a change of study or work orientation. However,there are likely to be difficulties adapting to the transition across sectors, in the contextof negative perceptions many former higher education students have of technicaleducation (DEET, 1993; Golding 1994b) and the related difficulties coping with theperception of having to take a sub-optimal course with less status.

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100 B. Golding

From a technical education institutional point of view, there might also be disadvan-tages for institutions which focus on the notion of technical education being a secondchance for 'educational rejects' or curriculum shortcomings from the higher educationsystem. Since many students are not following linear or sequential pathways, there maybe difficulties in determining levels of credit or RPL, because of different emphases onknowledge, practical skills and competencies between the education sectors.

Implications for Quality

Quality has at least two dimensions: one in terms of measurable outputs or outcomessuch as graduation rates (versus attrition) and job success, and the other in terms ofprocess; that is, in terms of the quality of the experience during the course, particularlyas it relates to the institutional environment and in terms of the teaching and supportavailable.

If quality is to be assessed and judged by student outcomes, as measured by thenumber of higher education students subsequently moving into technical education, theremay need to be significant changes made to the assumptions about what is educationaland what is vocational in both technical education and higher education sectors, and forbetter documentation of what transferable knowledge and skills survive the intersectoraltransition. In order to measure properly these unintended (but clearly well trodden)'reverse' pathways, we need better, longer term data and statistical indicators whichmore accurately measure what is actually occurring amongst students after they finishtheir courses.

Grant (1986) has suggested that negotiation and implementation of effective transferarrangements will be achieved if all institutions (higher education and technical edu-cation) accept that transfer is a key component of their mission. Higher education andtechnical education institutions need to become more aware of what subsequent workand study pathways their students might follow, and provide better transfer services inand out of their institutions. Until such improvements are made in both sectors, and untilwe cease to characterise educational and articulation movements using adjectives suchas 'higher' and 'reverse', some of our best attempts to reverse negative quality indicatorssuch as attrition and transfer will continue to be problematic. Students are choosing,despite widely held preconceptions about prestige associated with higher education, tomove wherever their interests, and particularly their next vocational interest, takes them.

Shapiro (1993) considers it likely that continuation of the trend towards mass highereducation will be accompanied by "differentiation not only as between different types ofinstitutions...but also as among different institutions all of which have the same genericname" (p. 53). Shapiro suggests that in all mass systems of higher education, and in boththe popular and institutional mind, not all degrees are equal and not all institutions arethe same. This differentiation raises two important questions for quality control,particularly in the context of "the labour market's inability to continue to absorb theincreasing number of new graduates" (GCCA, 1994, p. 6); in particular

...how institutions—whatever the faculty and student background brought tothem—nevertheless maintain high expectations for student performance andprovide the intensive (albeit different) learning experience that would justifythese expectations. Second, it allows and has, in fact, encouraged an inappro-priate credentialism. (Shapiro, 1993, p. 54)

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Not all students who aspire to a particular university course or to the higher educationsector generally can get a place. Not all institutions can offer the same quality ofeducation or guarantee the same job outcomes. If mass demand for and supply of highereducation continues and Australia continues to produce 120,000 graduates per year intoa workforce which is not expanding at that rate, we should not be surprised to find notonly non-graduates but graduates in larger numbers in technical education.

Higher education, as a by-product, produces large numbers of non-graduates. Many ofthese students are in vocational limbo, neither academically proficient to go on topostgraduate study or to professional employment, nor necessarily with vocationallyuseful skills in a particular field. We should be asking, as did the Chair of theDEET/OECD (1993, p. 80) Conference, whether there might be other forms ofpost-secondary and higher education which may be more appropriate to student needsand which may in fact be a better response to the growth in demand than simply themultiplication of universities.

One possible strategy might be to move towards policies which encourage a diversityof educational goals within a common institutional framework, such as those suggestedby Scott (1975, pp. 130-131). Diverse multi-sectoral institutions with technical andhigher education on the same campus have an enhanced ability for intra-institutionaltransfer compared with stand-alone technical or higher education institutions, enablingintegrated curriculum design and comparative ease of articulation and credit transfer.There is no reason why comprehensive institutions should not be able to offer what Scottdescribes as "widely different approaches to education and styles of learning—generaleducation, professional and vocational training, recreational study, academic scholarship,scientific research" (p. 30) on one campus, with improved efficiency and quality, as wellas equality of opportunity for student access and articulation into all forms of post-com-pulsory education. Such comprehensive institutions might be similar, in some respects atleast, to post-secondary systems in the USA.

In the interim there will be a need to provide standard, well-understood andwell-publicised credit transfer and recognition of prior learning (RPL) arrangements onthe most heavily trodden of the intersectoral pathways into institutions and courses, aswell as admission quotas which assist students in articulating, but which protect bothnon-articulating students and the integrity of the course itself. Finally, there is a need tobuild articulation into the framework of quality assessment, to reconceptualise articula-tion as an inter- and intrasectoral multi-directional phenomenon, and to come to termswith generalist university to specific vocational training and retraining as a logical andwidespread process rather than a form of 'reverse' articulation.

Notes on Contributors

BARRY GOLDING has been Project Officer, TAFE Pathways and Quality Managementat the University of Ballarat, and a PhD candidate at the Centre for the Study ofHigher Education at The University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. His PhDstudies are focusing on the two-way intersectoral nature of tertiary articulation inAustralia. He holds degrees in Science and Arts, a Masters Degree in EnvironmentalScience and Postgraduate Diplomas in Education and Educational Administration.Correspondence: Mr Barry Golding, Centre for the Study of Higher Education,University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

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