The Essendon Football Club is at the forefront of an emerging trend in which large employers are partnering with the TAFE sector to design custom courses to train the workers they need.

The club features in a new report out today, highlighting TAFE and private-sector joint ventures designed to address real business challenges.

The Partners in Productivity report, released by the Victorian TAFE Association, demonstrates how co-designed training programs are delivering benefits for businesses, while creating meaningful career pathways for Victorians in a range of sectors, including sport.

Victorian TAFE Association Chief Executive Officer Alex White said the Essendon Football Club was leading the charge of organisations that were increasingly turning to TAFE providers to train their apprentices and upskill their workforces.

“Almost 60 per cent of employers who use apprentices or trainees use TAFE as their primary training provider, while the number of Victorian employers using TAFE has jumped 10 per cent in the past two years,” Mr White said.

“What we are seeing is genuine collaboration between public vocational training providers and employers as they create bespoke courses and qualifications that provide individuals with a path to key future occupations while also tackling the state’s significant skills challenge.”

The report highlights the success of the Essendon Education Academy, a joint initiative of RMIT College of Vocational Education and the Essendon Football Club.

Since 2022, 129 students have graduated from the academy, with 12 securing employment directly with the football club and many more moving into roles elsewhere in the sport and business industries.

RMIT Deputy Vice-Chancellor Vocational Education and Vice President, Mish Eastman, said the Essendon Education Academy’s unique offering allowed students to learn valuable leadership and business skills in a high-performing sporting environment.

“The programs are delivered in-person by RMIT staff using Essendon Football Club’s world-class facilities in Tullamarine, providing students with an inspiring learning environment as well as access to employment and pathway options,” she said.

“This collaboration between RMIT and Essendon Football Club is an outstanding example of what can be achieved in a co-design process between tertiary providers and industry.”

Essendon Football Club’s Executive General Manager of People and Culture, Caroline Monzon, said breaking into the professional sports industry often required networks, experience, and exposure to high-performance environments that a traditional pathway did not always offer.

“From a Club perspective, the Essendon Education Academy allows us to develop emerging talent who already understand our values, culture and standards,” she said.

Other partnerships featured in the report include:

• Microsoft Datacentre Academy: a co-designed partnership between Victoria University, Microsoft and the Victorian Government delivering industry-aligned data centre training.
• BlueScope-Box Hill Institute steelworks program: a tailored, on-site training partnership delivering a Certificate IV program to upskill steelworks employees in leadership, safety and process improvement.
• Digital Health Skills Program: a collaboration between RMIT, Cisco and Grampians Health that developed bespoke training to prepare healthcare workers for major digital transformation projects.

“These partnerships are what allow our TAFEs and dual-sector universities to improve social and economic inclusion for over 200,000 TAFE students each year,” Mr White said.

“It’s incredible to see that come to light in this report.”