Research On The Changes Of Curriculum Setting In Australian TAFE College

Australian technical and further education model is one of the characteristic vocational education models in the world, it is very important in the development of international vocational education. TAFE colleges are the vital undertakers of the vocational education and training and have a profound influence on the development of vocational education in Australia. The key of the development of TAFE colleges is the curriculum development idea keeping pace with the times and constantly changing of curriculum setting. In the past over 40 years, curriculum development of TAFE colleges at first was the major responsibility of the states in Australia. Curriculum was developed independently in each state. Curriculum classification was knowledge-based and inclined to have academic nature. In the middle of 1980 s, curriculum was classified in more detailed way by professional streams and had corresponding TAFE awards system. It occurred to the unification trend in curriculum area and gradually formed the competence-based curriculum view. From the middle of 1990 s to the present, Australian TAFE colleges had inclined to the direction of training going through merging and recombination of TAFE colleges. With the introduction of Australian Qualifications Framework and training packages, practical curriculum had been more stressed. Nowadays, competency-based and career-oriented curriculum views had already been the feature of the curriculum in Australian TAFE colleges. And also had been the solid foundation of the stable development of Australian vocational education.Generally considering some factors like establishing date of TAFE colleges, changes of Australian government, changes of curriculum classifications and so on, The paper partitions the history of Australian TAFE colleges from 1974 to now into three stages including establishing, developing and reforming stages. This paper arranged the changed history of curriculum setting in three stages from a historical perspective by the lights of large historical documents. According to the concept definition of curriculum setting in TAFE colleges, the paper attempted to reflect the curriculum setting changes of TAFE colleges from macro perspective, analyze the features or problems of curriculum setting in each stage and summarize the historical route of curriculum setting changes from the point of the changes of curriculum development and classifications. This paper explores the important measures and influential factors of curriculum setting in TAFE colleges and combines the current situation of curriculum setting of higher vocational education in our country, expecting to give some suggestions to the curriculum setting of higher technical education in China.