Skills summit

The Armidale Express

6/19/2024

New England North West skills and training forum

Transcript

00:00What a fabulous morning we have had today at the Work and Shortage Skills and Training

00:12Forum held here in Armidale.

00:13What a wrap-up we've had.

00:15We are ready to rock and roll for the New England Northwest.

00:18We've brought together experts from industry, education, and lots of training organisations,

00:25et cetera.

00:26It's just been absolutely fabulous.

00:28The wealth of knowledge that's been in the room today has absolutely landed us in a fantastic

00:34spot to say we're ready to build a blueprint to close the gap on and find those solutions

00:40for those workers' shortages skills and training.

00:43And that will start with looking at what a regional learning system can look like for

00:49our region.

00:50How we can embrace what we already have, the opportunities that we have, and bring together

00:56that brainstress to say, how can we now face those challenges, take that action, and make

01:03those results come to our region.

01:06That is what we've started today, and it's an incredible opportunity to have our regional

01:11leaders and our brainstress coming together to start this and be working with us hand

01:16in hand, arm in arm, and we will get the results that we need for the New England Northwest.

01:23It's a pretty tight time, I think, that we know that the New South Wales Government has

01:26to reduce expenditure, and they're working very hard, I think, to contain expenditure

01:31all around.

01:32So it's probably not reasonable to expect grand largesse.

01:36But I have noticed that the discussion of the regions has been important, and they've

01:40maintained several funds.

01:42I think I'm particularly buoyed by the fact that we see at least some money still going

01:47into the development of schools.

01:50For me, the university's mission is about education for people of regional and rural

01:53Australia, and we've got to start with making sure that the school environment is creating

01:59the aspiration in children for university.

02:03What do you think about the skills shortage and UNE's role in addressing that in regional

02:09areas?

02:12It's an interesting question.

02:13I mean, it's an interesting question for everybody as to why, all of a sudden, Australia has

02:17not enough people for our employment opportunities post-COVID.

02:21The university is trying to be a much more flexible place for learners of all different

02:25types, of all different stages in their personal careers and life journeys.

02:32It's a difficult thing for us to move very quickly towards, but we are trying to find

02:36avenues via which we can provide opportunities for people to do that.

02:41It's also really important the university is able to use big ears and listen very carefully

02:45to which of the skills that the learners that are out there will respond to.

02:52We have had examples where we've done quite a lot of background work on trying to understand

02:56what the demand for skills looks like and create short course opportunities, for example,

03:01and then the students don't show up.

03:03We really have a matching issue here as well to make sure we understand where the appetite

03:07is for those who are in a tight employment economy and for those who are demanding the

03:13skills and see if we can find some sweet spots to start to develop out from, but it's

03:17a wicked problem this one.

03:19So, Jennifer, you were saying that some of the medical professionals are moving from

03:26Moree and Inveril to Armidale.

03:30Why is that?

03:33We need to think about what our colleagues in our medical workforce do, and they do different

03:39things.

03:40They have a different scope of practice when they're in a remote location, when they're

03:44in a rural location like Moree, Inveril, Narrabri, Gunnedah, and when they're in our bigger regional

03:49towns like Armidale and Tamworth.

03:53So what we know is that when you're in and you're working in a small town as a health

03:57professional, there's often quite a significant amount of on-call, and there's often challenges

04:03obviously because you're expected and understood by your community to have quite a broad scope

04:09of practice.

04:10Now, we are very grateful for the effort and time that our rural GPs spend in providing

04:17these sorts of services, and we have many GPs who are absolute ornaments to their community.

04:24But I guess what I want to say is that we shouldn't expect them to stay in our small

04:28rural towns forever because that puts a pressure on them and a responsibility on them that

04:34I don't think is totally fair.

04:36So over time and with changing family needs and work-life balance, it is very reasonable

04:43that those practitioners will leave their smaller rural communities and look to go to

04:48larger places.

04:50The good news is that they often choose our regional centres like Dubbo, like Tamworth,

04:56like Armidale, and they do that because of that rural lifestyle quality that we have

05:01in spades.

05:03And obviously access to secondary schooling where you don't have to send your children

05:07away to boarding school if your school only goes to year 10, those sorts of considerations

05:13definitely come into play for many of our medical health professionals.

05:17So what can communities such as Inveril and Moree do to retain their health professionals

05:25there?

05:26So already those towns do go out of their way to support their communities and their

05:32health professionals.

05:34What we need to do is, though, is to make sure that we're reasonable in what we expect.

05:40And we know that retention times are lower the more remote you go.

05:46So it is not unreasonable to think that if you were in a town of less than 1,000 people

05:51that your retention time in that town as a primary health care nurse or as a rural GP

05:59might be somewhat shorter than it was in a larger town.

06:03And that might be somewhat shorter to a regional centre like Armidale or Tamworth.

06:10And is it lifestyle that is encouraging medical professionals away from the smaller towns

06:17in New England to larger centres such as Tamworth and Armidale?

06:22It's multifaceted.

06:23It's partly that scope of practice that I talked to, which means that people have to

06:29be proficient in a breadth of skills.

06:32And they are magnificent and supportive practitioners, nurses, health professionals, and allied health

06:37professionals who are happy to work over that wide scope.

06:41It's career advancement and career trajectory that many of our younger graduates are looking

06:45to over time.

06:47And it's definitely about spousal employment and rural lifestyle and wanting and having

06:53those needs of their families change over time.

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Transcript

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