The role of VET in the (dis)placing of migrants’ skills in Australia

Vocational Education and Training (VET) in a policy and institutional sense plays an important role in the migration experiences of people who settle in Australia. This article draws on qualitative empirical work using narrative accounts from VET practitioners along with a cross section of ethnically diverse migrants to reveal how race and ethnicity are central to and constitutive of the experiences of both humanitarian and skilled migrants in Australian VET. The article employs critical race theory (CRT) building on research developed by others in the Journal of VET to analyse these experiences and the role of VET and labour markets in this process of (dis)placing migrants’ skills. The article argues firstly, that skilled migrants are not absent in VET, but are rather rendered invisible in a policy sense. Secondly, CRT provides a theoretical resource for coming to grips with how, in a marketised Australian VET context where institutional responses to skilled migration can either be beneficial or exploitative, practices privilege advantaged groups and are always at once culturally loaded.