PANELS AND DISCUSSIONS
VET in the Age of AI:
Changing What and How we Teach and Assess
Queensland University of Technology
Principal, Claire Field and Associates
Biography
Claire is the Principal of Claire Field and Associates, an independent consultancy practice. She previously held senior positions in the NSW and Australian governments, as well as in TAFE NSW and Mission Australia. She also served as the CEO of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training.
Claire is a member of the Australian government’s Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) Advisory Group and in 2023 was awarded the IEAA Excellence in Professional Commentary Award. She is the host of the ‘What now? What next? Insights into Australia’s tertiary education sector’ podcast, and is undertaking a PhD at Torrens University writing the history of the university’s first 10 years.
Director Educational Quality, TAFE NSW
Biography
Dr Suneeti Rekhari is Director Educational Quality at TAFE NSW and has over 15 years’ experience in the tertiary education sector. She is responsible for a large and diverse team, with a complex strategic and regulatory portfolio, leading quality assurance, academic integrity, registration and review.
Dr Rekhari has led whole-of-organisation curriculum transformation, ensuring contemporary approaches to learning and teaching, quality outcomes and building teacher capability. In recognition of her global leadership in these fields, she is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK (PFHEA). Dr Rekhari was awarded her PhD in 2007 and her academic expertise is in the broad field of Society and Culture.
Future Skills Organisation
Biography
Sally Browner has over 20 years’ experience across the educational spectrum. She has taught High School, run Australia’s largest and only accredited Coding Bootcamp, co-founded Goanna Education, run the new Institute of Applied Technology-Digital and is now the Director of Digital the Future Skills Organisation. Sally is a regular speaker at events like Edutech 2024, Digital Transformation Live 2023, and EdTech Summit 2023. She is also a member of Women’s Education Leadership Group with Edugrowth, Deakin MBA student, and recipient of the Women's Advanced Leadership Program Scholarship in 2021, finalist in both the Women's Agenda Awards (Emerging Leader in Tech, 2018) and the Telstra Businesswomen of the Year Awards (2018/19). Sally is passionate about innovative solutions that make education more connected and accessible.
The past is a foreign country, or is it? The curious journey of Kangan’s discourses over 50 years.
Biography
Dr Don Zoellner has worked in the school, vocational and higher education sectors in the Northern Territory since 1973 including senior leadership roles at Centralian College and Charles Darwin University. He was a panel member of the Shergold Review of Senior Secondary Pathways. Dr Zoellner has served on numerous advisory committees, reviews and evaluations of education and training at NT and national levels. He was the board chair of Group Training NT and is the independent chair of the Industry Skills Advisory Council NT board. He was the NT representative on the Australian Industry and Skills Committee and is a member of the National VET Regulator Advisory Council. Dr Zoellner independently researches, presents and publishes on the development and implementation of VET policy.
&
Dr Kaye Schofield AO
Biography
Kaye recently retired after a 55 year career in education. She joined NSW TAFE in 1980 and spent the next four decades working in the vocational and education and training sector and in international development.
Leadership roles in Australian VET have included Interim Chair & CEO, Australian Skills Quality Authority; CEO, Department of Employment & TAFE, South Australia; CEO, South Australian Department of Labour, Public Works and Administrative Services and as a Deputy Principal, Principal and Regional Manager in NSW TAFE. She served on the Board of the Australia-Indonesia Institute, the Board of the NSW TAFE Commission and chaired the NSW Board of Adult Education. At the University of Technology Sydney she was Executive Director of the National Research Centre for Vocational Education and Training and Adjunct Professor of Education. She has led and been a member of many state and national reviews into various aspects of TAFE, VET and the labour market.
From 1998, Kaye also worked as an advisor to DFAT in Australia’s international aid program in South East Asia and the South Pacific. She served as AusAID’s Principal Sector Specialist for Education 2012-2013 and was later appointed by DFAT as Chair of the Australia Pacific Training College.
In 2011 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Education from RMIT University for her research and policy contribution to vocational education. In 2014 she was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to vocational education and to the community.
AVETRA
AVETRA
24 is organised by the Australasian Vocational Education and Training Research
Association (AVETRA), with the support of FineHaus
Telephone
AVETRA Secretariat
+61 3 3 8658 6641