The South Australian Economic Development Board has released a 'Review of skills and workforce development in South Australia'. Key issues are: projecting the skills that will be needed in the future; engaging with industry in relation to workforce planning and development; communicating with individuals (youth, existing workers, and migrants); negotiating with the Federal Government about industry restructuring; and exploring opportunities of new programs providing training places.

Innovation and Business Skills Australia (ISBA) has released a discussion paper concerning TAA04 Training and Assessment Training Package and its "fitness for purpose." During 2008,ISBA has conducted consultations on the Certificate IV qualification, and made some important modifications but has not changed in any significant way its structure or design. The paper has been produced to focus discussion on design and content issues.

The paper was developed to give stakeholders an opportunity to provide feedback to the Australian Government about the proposed architecture and implementation arrangements for 630,000 additional training places, to be delivered as the Productivity Places Program. Stakeholders were able to make submissions on the issues raised in the paper up to 30 April 2008. More than eighty responses were received and they are available here.

Minister Caica, Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education announced that each of the nine industry skill boards will receive $1 million from the State Government over the next 5 years, a rise of a $300,000 each, taking the total to $9 million. One of the joint projects to be undertaken by the skill boards is the development of a retention model for mature-aged tradespeople, in which they are retrained to become the trainers of new recruits.

Reframing the future is facilitating interactive forums in Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Hobart during August 2008. The forums will enable Registered Training Providers (RTOs) and practitioners to discuss strategies for diagnosing, predicting and customising training for workforce development needs.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting to consider national market orientated reforms to the TAFE sector as part of the negotiations between commonwealth and state over funding for vocational education and training. These reforms are currently being proposed by the Victorian Government in a discussion paper where it is suggested that government supported post-school training will be available to public and private providers.

Phase II of the Federal Government's Productivity Places Program has started which will see an extra 22,000 places rolled out for courses from Certificate II to Diploma levels. The program will also encourage people in the existing workforce to take up training as necessary, subject to agreed arrangements being finalised with each state and territory.

Precision Consultancy has been contracted to develop units of competency in relation to Intellectual Property (IP) as part of the national Business Services qualifications. These units will also be relevant to other qualifications convened by other industry groups. Precision Consultancy would like to consult widely about business and training needs in relation to IP and are seeking input from interested parties.

Six e-learning priorities have emerged across states and territories as the national training system takes an innovative approach in responding to the challenges of a modern economy and the training needs of Australian businesses and workers. The national training system's e-learning strategy, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework), has awarded funding to support more than 90 registered training organisations (RTOs) to deliver innovative e-learning solutions for the vocational education and training (VET) system. Although funding has been handed out via states and territories according to their local training priorities, some common themes have emerged across Australia.

The Institute for Trade Skills Excellence has opened nominations for the 2008 Trade and Skills Teacher of the Year award. There are also subcategories for outstanding trade teachers in the areas of automotive, building and construction, electrical, hospitality and personal services, manufacturing, metals and engineering, mineral resources and rural and farming.