Mr Mark Harris

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2010 Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Vocational Education and Training (VET) sponsored by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

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“In order to retain an appropriate developed VET workforce to meet the diverse needs of students, communities and industries, we need to address a range of organisational and demographic issues that impact on quality education and service delivery. With the average age of teachers in the field now being around 47.5 years of age, there is a need to respond to this demographic trend and investigate ways to attract, develop, reward and retain staff in a sustainable and strategic context.”

Mark Harris, Senior Strategy Officer with the Queensland Department of Education and Training, Product Services in South Brisbane has been awarded the 2010 Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Vocational Education and Training sponsored by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. This Scholarship was established in 1995 to support the exchange of research and ideas in VET between Australia and the United States.

Through the Fulbright Scholarship, Mark will spend up to four months with State University of New York in Oswego researching the area of vocational education and training.

“VET practitioners tend to be passionate individuals, committed to their vocation. However they often lack career paths, and as the workforce ages there is a loss of knowledge and wisdom to the sector as people retire,” he said.

“We need to identify, design and implement innovative human resource strategies which recognise, value, develop and manage the VET workforce in a competitive and dynamic environment.”

Mark will also examine a structured Vocational Teacher Preparation program that is offered in the U.S. with a view to its connection to workforce development and contemporary teaching, learning and assessment practices.

“In particular, I will be looking at developing a sustainable approach to workforce capacity building; and creating a culture whereby people can continually enhance their professional capabilities.”

Mark has a Associate Diploma of Business from the Southbank Institute of TAFE (now Southbank Institute of Technology), a Bachelor of Business from Queensland University of Technology, a Graduate Diploma in Further Education and Training and a Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training from the University of Southern Queensland, and a Master with Honours in Human Resource Management from Griffith University. In addition to his professional life, Mark leads workforce capability development projects in the VET sector as part of the Queensland Skills Plan initiative.

A high resolution version of the photo above is available by clicking here.