In this study, I have preferred to keep neo-liberalism as context to envision alternatives rather than conduct research which may have an unnecessarily polarised perspective of equity in skills policy. Nonetheless, researchers suggest that VET has increasingly become a neo-liberal product with characteristics and language that are managerialistic (Abbott-Chapman & Easthope, 1998; Bowman & McKenna, 2016; Wheelahan, 2015). Neo-liberalism is the term used to conceptualise a system that emphasises economic growth through marketisation and privatisation together with the
Peck, 2010; A. Smith, 1776). Neo-liberalism might be interchangeably used with “marketisation” and the market agenda is pervasive in education in Australia and internationally (Connell, 2013a; Savage, Sellar, & Gorur, 2013).
Researchers argue that neo-liberal policy in education “commodifies” learners and situates them in a
“deficitdiscourse” (Armstrong et al., 2016; Miller, 2010; O’Shea et al., 2015; Patrick, 2013; Valencia, 1997) where education becomes skills with commercial value and learners experiencing
disadvantage become the blamed victims. This Australian position, Wheelahan argues, is consistent with a neo-liberal, new public management view of TAFE as monopolistic, unresponsive to industry and untrusted to deliver skills outcomes (2015). Wheelahan (2015) infers that the exclusion of provider and consumer input to decision-making translates to exclusion of broader social policy objectives in VET and this is the point of interest for this study. Patrick (2013) takes the argument a step further to propose that key principles of neo-liberalism move beyond the hegemonic to become an apparent objective truth where it is now impossible to argue for values such as, for example, equity.
Discussion of neo-liberalism calls for reflection on an alternative perspective which I next discuss through the lens of paradigms of public administration. A focus on public administration and policy analysis was an unanticipated turn in the study; I had expected that the study might stay confined to, for example, specific aspects of institutions in the skills sector or to the vexed issues arising from VET FEE-HELP.
2.6.2.1Paradigms of Public Administration
Paradigms of public administration may be described in different ways but Stoker (2006) argues that their common characteristic is that they are all in transition. Rhodes (1997, 2007) argues that the significant element of the transition is from centralised Westminster-government models to de- centred governance, a term that reflects outsourcing of government services resulting in a network of private and public actors within policy arenas. Historically the three paradigms determining approaches to implementation of public policy objectives are: public administration (around 1900 to 1970); new public management (NPM) (often referred to as the neo-liberal approach); and from 1990s emerging new public governance (NPG) (Osborne, 2010).
Osborne (2010) posits NPG as a new, although not necessarily normative, paradigm by public sector managers and academics but there are a number of models of what NPG might/should look like. Alternative frameworks recognise the changing nature of government and governance but suggest a different focus. These might be “Meta-governance” as the “governance of governance” (Peters,
2010, p. 37); the “hybridmodel” (Christensen, 2012) argues that there is “sedimentation” of ideas and practices of the NPM to the post-NPM model of public service delivery; or there is no profound transformation from government to governance (Bell and Hindmoor (2009).
In this study, the focus is on the network governance I saw in the VET field involving how “self- oganising interorganisational networks” (Rhodes, 1997, p. 53), such as private and public RTOs, function both with and without government to provide public services. Rhodes, with publications and co-publications from 1997, and Bevir and Rhodes together (e.g. Bevir & Rhodes, 2010; Bevir et al., 2003; Rhodes, 1997, 2007), laid the foundations for consideration of new public governance and it is unusual to find authors in this area of political science and social organisation who do not cite Rhodes as seminal.
Rhodes’s (1997, 2007) interpretation is visible in the formulation and implementation of skills policy with its government funding and diverse actors. First, there is a change of relationships between the state and civil society; there are increased global influences on local decision-making; the polity is increasingly fragmented and differentiated. I saw the “weakened core executive” and a “hollowing out” (Rhodes, 1997, p. 53) of the centralist hierarchical Westminster system where decision-makers have ineffectual, or “looseleverage” (Rhodes, 1997, p. 57) to implement decisions.
Second, Rhodes (2007) argues that policy administration and analysis, or methodology, must change to accommodate the relational aspects of public administrators with the agencies and individuals with whom they must engage to achieve policy outcomes. Rhodes (2007) has argued for the interpretivist model of analysis as counterpoint to positivist approaches. He argues that we cannot
“pull off people’s beliefs from their institutional position or their social class” (Rhodes, 2007,
p. 1252). It is an important contextual note for this study that there is discussion about the nature of subjective inquiry or interpretivism in governance theory. Rhodes, and later Rhodes and Bevir (Bevir et al., 2003), argue that if it is acknowledged that there is no longer a single, linear reality in public administration, policy analysis and methodology must recognise that ethnography and history are needed to “provide thick descriptions of individual beliefs and practices” (p. 195). Respondents agree (Hay, 2011; McAnulla, 2006) but argue that deeper insights are needed into the nature of institutions (Hay, 2011). Bevir (2011) argues strongly for comparative analysis as a way of focusing less on methodological rigour than on philosophical coherence. It as theorising that led me to consider Rhodes’s interpretive approach in both political science and organisational theory to consider equity in skills policy.
In this study, the framework of NPG is especially pertinent, whether normative or not, for consideration of ways to embed equity in skills policy. That is, the problem solving with regard to closing the equity gap is exercised within a federal structure; programs are funded by a central government authority. However, the implementation of policy is dispersed among subordinate RTOs in government, private and community sectors. The essence of this study is to make visible
competing and relational interests, values and cognitive orientations of each to explore how equity might be embedded in skills policy.
2.6.2.2Public Sector Methodology for Gathering Evidence
There is growing research literature concerning neo-liberal public policy and the ramifications of persisting with traditional methodology for formulating and implementing policy (e.g. Abbott- Chapman & Easthope, 1998; Bevir, 2011; Charmaz, 2014; Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Lingard & Rawolle, 2011; Rhodes, 2007). A former Public Service Commissioner (Briggs, 2007) wrote from the
perspective of wicked problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973) – such as equity. Briggs (2007) writes: “The
consensus in the literature … is that such a linear, traditional approach to policy formulation is an inadequate way to work with wicked policy problems” and she is alarmed that “It is often thought that the more complex the problem is, the more important it is to follow this orderly flow” (p. 11). Academics are raising concerns about concepts of public engagement and public evidence, and social justice, but this research suggests that there is yet to be a conclusive “bigconversation” (McAnulla, 2006) about public sector problems and methodology. This is a deep question calling for crossover of sectors and disciplines so that those concerned with policy settings have discourse with what is evidence (or knowledge) and how it can be investigated. Veltri, Lim and Miller (2014) write that the social sciences are consolidating options through qualitative research but that its transfer to support policy is “… still sporadic and in its infancy” (p. 2). This is Denzin’s politics of evidence (2014) and it is fundamentally a philosophical question of what is truth and knowledge and how can it be revealed. I emphasise that considerations of public administration paradigms and policy analysis in government are an alternative way of thinking about neo-liberalism and its impact on equity in VET.