Vet in Schools: The Adoption of National Training Packages in a Secondary School Setting

Abstract

Growing pressure is being placed on schools, as students, employers and governments look at the economic, demographic and vocational environments of the present, and expect schools to adequately prepare students for an ever widening post-school vocational future. A major factor contributing to the lack of adoption of any new innovations is the entrenched attitudes of the teaching staff and a reluctance to change. In differing forms, Vocational Education and Training programs have been circling the change process in Australian schools since 1930, yet still are in the adoption and implementation phase rather than having become institutionalised and embedded in the life of schools. It is clear that the way teachers construct meaning for innovations is a major factor in whether innovations are institutionalised in schools. However, this paper also investigates the influences of organisational culture, infrastructure, leadership and policy on the adoption of National Training Packages and their components in a West Australian case-study school.