Learning in the workplace - who's doing the teaching? Looking at apprentice cooks in a whole range of settings, including in the Navy. Interested in why people drop out from apprenticeships and/or the industry. When on shore, more of just a job, low status in a base. When on a boat, closer relationships, more like a family. Approach is to look at situated learning and directly engage with learners. Huge attrition rate 57% within the first year of training, 40% leave within 5 years of qualification. Lots of bullying - pics of Gordon Ramsay as illustration. Research will look at comparative analysis between industries to gain insight. Aim affect change to reduce skill wastage. Cookery hours and days of work V unattractive. Will be interesting to see how factors correlate to other apprentice areas. *Looking around the room I can't see a laptop or PDA other than my jasjam. Where are the bloggers? Barely anyone is even writing notes. How on earth do people remember this stuff??? There are 3 days of talks to absorb and process. Anyhow back to the scheduled programming .... Pressure from employers to restrict scope of training to extent of business eg no desserts or pates etc. TAFE gives opportunity to learn broader range of skills which creates a more useful member of industry in long term. And opportunity for worker to have career mobility and progression. Context - training at TAFE is safe situation, however there seems to be a failure of transfer of skills to the workplace, and also difficult to give enough opportunity to practice. First year mentoring by more advanced students makes a difference, as does support and high expectations from employer. Employers get loyalty. Employees feel valued and needed, not just another pair of hands. Content - replication of real workplaces is difficult because of the variety of contexts in which people are working. (I think he messed up the selection of quotes for the context/ content sections because they seemed out of order) Facilitation - employers have responsibility as well as TAFE and the apprentice - just look at how many hours the apprentice is at work rather than at TAFE. (ppt printouts provided) Why do people take up particular careers and why do they leave those careers? Conclusion: there's an opportunity for tafe to play a greater role in the workplace learning of the apprentice, this will help in supporting the apprentice to learn and work well, and stay in the industry. My comment - this presentation could have been better structured, and would have benefited from a review process and culling of text on ppt slides. I found it hard to follow his argument, at times wondering if he had one, perhaps he was still at question asking stage. I hope he writes something more coherent for his doctoral dissertation! Being the final presenter for the day is a tricky slot too!