DASSH made a submission to Jobs and Skills Australia around the development of a National Skills Taxonomy in August 2024. After extensive consultation with members we outlined a series of opportunities and risks associated with the proposal.

Our members see a NST as an opportunity to:

• Recognise interdisciplinarity
• Help educators and students identify and translate cognitive and higher order skills
• Capture the full suite of skills needed to ensure good economic outcomes, regional security and a healthy democracy
• Increase pathways that enable lifelong learning and employment mobility
• Improve mobility between VET and higher education
• Meet actual employer demand for workers who can think critically, analyse and cope with change
• Deliver on the critical need for Australia to identify and apply new knowledge

The risks members highlighted include:

• Failing to capture the full suite of skills needed to ensure Australia is secure, healthy and democratic
• Failing to measure the level of attainment associated with different types of education
• Being used as a tool for shortsighted policy decisions focusing on skills shortages alone while ignoring sovereign capabilities
• Failing to place emphasis on the interdisciplinary nature of skills and their application

This is something that could have great benefits for arts, social sciences and humanities but if cognitive and higher order thinking skills are not captured we will not meet employer demand for workers who can think, reason and cope with change.