Regional partnerships: the path to social and economic wellbeing

This paper looks at partnerships. It describes partnership as the key concept in today's national policy directions for the vocational education and training (VET) system. VET organisations are encouraged to partner with each other, industry and enterprises, schools and higher education institutions, governments and communities. The Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) is actively involved in regional development through partnerships and other collaborative arrangements with local industries. CIT's involvement with the spatial information industry and the interactive entertainment industry are given as examples. Partnerships with industry and enterprises are now common throughout the TAFE system. Multiple purposes and outcome objectives are reasons for partnerships. The Australian Quality Training Framework and revenue raising are motivating factors for partnerships in some circumstances. A competency model developed by CIT for middle level VET managers provides a framework for partnership skills for staff. Six competency domains are proposed. The paper concludes with the need to look towards community-wide partnerships to build capacity to support regional social and economic development, and the need for communities to work together to maximise the beneficial outcomes of sharing people, technology, information, expertise, facilities, costs, effort and responsibility in a well planned, managed, and coordinated way.