ERIC Number: EJ1182431
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Jul
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0311-6999
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Available Date: N/A
A Reflective Account of the VET FEE-HELP Initiative as a Driver of Ethical Dilemmas for Vocational Education Teachers in Australia
Nakar, Sonal; Bagnall, Richard G.; Hodge, Steven
Australian Educational Researcher, v45 n3 p383-400 Jul 2018
This paper reviews the nature and implementation of the Australian VET FEE-HELP (VFH) policy initiative: a scheme introduced in 2008 to extend income-contingent loans to the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia. We argue that the implementation of the scheme has been seriously flawed, leading to a range of counter-educational and unethical practices on the part of some VET providers. An ongoing research project into the impact of the changing contemporary cultural context of VET on the creation of moral dilemmas facing VET teachers in their work has identified four dilemmas that were seen by teachers to be significantly driven by the VFH scheme. Those dilemmas arose from (1) unethical student recruitment and enrolment practices, (2) overlooking traditional educational standards, (3) constraining teacher responsiveness and (4) manipulating learning assessment. The identifying teachers saw themselves as being professionally unprepared to handle such moral dilemmas, leading to discomfort and inappropriate handling of the dilemmas.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Vocational Education Teachers, Reflection, Ethics, Educational Policy, Program Implementation, Educational Malpractice, Policy Analysis, Cultural Context, Student Recruitment, Enrollment Management, Academic Standards, Teacher Response, Test Bias, Teacher Attitudes
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
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Language: English
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Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
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Author Affiliations: N/A