The training and employment challenge of remote communities: Is collaboration the solution?

Over the last decade, very remote Northern Territory has seen significant improvement in participation, retention and completion rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in vocational qualifications. The number holding a certificate qualification increased sixfold in the period from 2001 to 2011 while employment only increased by 10 per cent. This is despite increased attention to equipping people with necessary foundation skills through language literacy and numeracy and employability skills programs.

Recent strategic policy interventions emphasise the importance of collaboration between training and employment service providers to improve outcomes for clients. The theory is that collaboration should reduce duplication of services, make service provision more efficient, and provide a seamless pathway for clients into employment.

This paper presents two case studies of programs which, through service provider collaboration, aimed to improve the capacity of remote Aboriginal jobseekers to engage with and secure employment. Drawing from data obtained through the programs by researchers from Batchelor Institute, they demonstrate how collaboratively engineered pathways work or fail. Having tested assumptions about engineered pathways and collaboration to improve remote labour force participation, the paper concludes with implications for provision of job services and training in remote Australia.