Minister for Education, Training and Employment
The Honourable John-Paul Langbroek
TAFE teacher awarded research scholarship
Minister for Education, Training and Employment John-Paul Langbroek has congratulated Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE teacher, Stephen Ward, on being awarded a National Centre for Vocational Education Research scholarship.
Mr Langbroek said Stephen was one of seven national recipients to receive the Community of Practice scholarship, which would allow him to investigate better mentoring methods for vocational education teachers.
“A strong education and training system is built around the people who lead and teach within it,” Mr Langbroek said.
“That is why it is so important that we encourage people like Stephen to seek better ways to support and develop vocational education teachers.
“The Newman Government is committed to ensuring all Queensland students have a quality education and training opportunities to give them a solid foundation to prosper in further studies or employment.
“I wish Stephen all the best for the coming year a s he carries out his research and hope that he encourages his fellow vocational education teachers to undertake similar projects in the future.”
Through the scholarship, Stephen will receive a $4000 grant to develop effective research skills and carry out a research project on a relevant workplace issue or problem.
Over the next 12 months Stephen will craft his research skills with the assistance of an experienced mentor and produce a paper to address real work problems by exploring mentoring practice in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector.
Stephen said he was excited to develop his ability to produce research that is relevant to VET practice.
“I have delivered Teaching and Education and Adult Literacy and Numeracy training at TAFE for 13 years and have been with MSIT for more than four years but I don’t consider myself to be a researcher,” he said.
“My research project will look at what mentoring models would be appropr iate to use with teachers at the Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE (MSIT).
“VET teaching doesn’t have much of a history of mentoring and there aren’t an awful lot of research papers on it out there.
“MSIT has been very supportive of my grant application and I intend to look closely at how my research can improve classroom practice here.
“Down the track, I hope that the findings from my project will inform what MSIT does and could perhaps be rolled out to the broader VET teaching spectrum.”
Further information on NCVER research scholarships can be found at www.ncver.edu.au
