National collaboration within and across public and private providers in the development of multimedia resources for the VET sector

The growing acceptance of economic models and increased marketisation has led to an increase in the role of private providers in the provision of services within the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. The changing role of the government has led to a growing propensity for increased collaboration between state and private providers, the former focusing on developing and implementing the policy and the latter focusing on providing greater competition in the delivery of training to the customer. Firstly, this paper argues that collaboration between federal and state government bodies has increased the efficiency of scarce fiscal resources used in the VET sector, and with greater evaluation of policies and processes, the effectiveness of the final outcome will continue to improve. Secondly, the paper argues that the quality of the collaboration amongst government bodies and public and private consortia depends largely on the ability of policy-makers to provide an appropriate environment in which the stated VET goals can be achieved. The paper is in two parts. The first part describes the forces encouraging collaboration in policy-making and the implementation of Toolbox Initiatives (1998, 1999). The second part examines the impact of collaboration on implementation processes and the resulting outcomes.