Kathy Rankin: General Manager, Training and Education Support
Kathy Rankin has come to TAFE NSW from the NSW Business Chamber (formerly Australian Business Ltd), where she was the Senior Manager Policy. Kathy has a varied background in education and small business.
As part of her previous role, Kathy held membership of a range of NSW and Australian government education and employment taskforces and committees. She has been a Board member of Innovation and Business Skills Australia, and was co-chair of the Equity Advisory Taskforce for Vocational and Technical Education.
Kathy Rankin has come to TAFE NSW from the NSW Business Chamber (formerly Australian Business Ltd), where she was the Senior Policy Manager. The Chamber is a broad based employer association representing the interests of 19,000 NSW enterprises. Kathy has a background in education and small business.
Q: What led you to join TAFE?
A: I saw the opportunity to bring the industry skills I have developed to support the new direction for TAFE NSW that has developed out of the Century 21 project. I have the broader industry experience and networks and a strong knowledge of VET. I saw my knowledge as an added piece of capability that contributes to streamlining what we do and how we undertake our business. As well, I believe strongly in public education. I believe we have a need to ensure we have an inclusive society. TAFE NSW has a strong network of Institutes that is providing local high quality responses to clients.
Q: How did you start out your career?
A: I began my career as a secondary teacher, here and later, on exchange in the United Kingdom. On my return, I had a child, and lectured at Sydney University to trainee teachers, developing an interest in the quality of teaching. I later returned to England and worked in vocational education and training with a highly marginalized client group.
Q: How did that experience shape your commitment to equity?
A:I believe the principles that underpin equity should be used for all areas of training – integrating principles of access and equity across TAFE makes us more responsive and client driven. My experience has formed my belief that equity is not the exception to the norm, it is for the norm. Because it is for every single student – every student is different.
Q: When did your involvement with the business community start?
A: Following my return to Australia, I had a change of direction, and ran a small furnishing retailing business, employing seven staff and learning al aspects of the business- marketing, delivering, responding - from scratch. I am a strong believer in learning from experience. In 2000, I put together my knowledge of small business and of the VET sector and joined the NSW Business Chamber (then Australian Business Limited).
Q: What did you do at the NSW Business Chamber?
A: The membership of the Chamber (around 19,000 businesses) is representative of the demographic of the NSW business community, including its regional spread and business size. I was the senior policy manager.
My role there involved providing the business community with advice on training and development and education and higher education and advice on how to engage with, and access, public and private training. I saw part of my role as demystifying training for the business community.
I was responsible for providing feedback to the State and Commonwealth governments on barriers identified by business in accessing vocational education and training (VET). This meant conducting consultations, gathering input, identifying priorities, enabling change, gaining a clear understanding, and developing appropriate responses. To do this well you need to have a very clear understanding of the context and framework that lies behind policies and issues in VET.
Also, I was directly responsible for interactions with the commonwealth government in relation to VET, and had oversight of general policy areas. I represented industry on a number of significant industry task forces.
Q: What does your new role involve?
A: The key areas of responsibility are:
- developing appropriate resources to support Institutes’ delivery options and capability development
- quality assurance under delegation from VETAB
- industry and community liaison – our area is the key point between TAFE NSW and peak bodies, especially the Industry Skills Councils and State ITABS
- giving specialist advice to institutes to support their response to clients
- overarching professional development - there are two areas – the Top 100 Leaders initiative and the Workforce Development Guarantee.
Essentially, we are a resource to support Institutes, respond to their customers, assist them, reduce the time and complexity involved in meeting client needs and building quality outcomes.
Essentially, we are a resource support for Institutes, to assist them in being quick to market and respond to customer needs, reducing the time and complexity involved in meeting client needs.
Q: What are some of your impressions so far?
A: There is significant complexity. There are big challenges as we move toward becoming a more customer focused support agency and develop consistency about and how and what we do. I see an incredible opportunity for TAFE to take what it has implemented to date and use it to help shape VET into the future.
Vocational Education and Training is under the spotlight often, but it’s not always recognized for the positive outcomes it can have for employment and economic wellbeing. The quality of TAFE’s offerings contributes directly to the quality of the workforce and economy of the state and the nation – we must never lose sight of that. We need to be at the forefront of skills development to ensure VET can effectively provide for economic progress and Australia’s global interaction.
Q: What’s on your to do list?
A: To build commitment to the vision and the operational structures that will take Training and Education Support (TES) forward. To support people on the ground,. I will be actively building with the TES Team the processes identified in the Century 21 review. To support this we need to recognize and develop good practice models.
I want to make sure we have a transparency about our processes and work towards streamlining and simplifying our activity – to make us more efficient and enable TAFE NSW to generate more appropriate responses.
I believe you need to share what you’re doing. So I’d like to ensure everybody knows what we are doing and knows how we will be measured in our success.
I plan to engage and interact with stakeholders as much as possibly and the TES Team will consult strongly within TAFE Institutes when building their workplans to support Institutes in metropolitan and Regional locations.
In the immediate future, I’ll be taking an active role in TAFE’s Top 100 Leadership program. We’ve been through a rigorous selection process and are now finalizing the participants and program for the first section to be delivered in early December