Table 36: Barriers to organising professional development reported by TPs

Because as you move into the blended journey, one big consideration is knowing how to be able to develop effective learning at a very reasonable cost. Do you basically go for better, higher quality capability of your instructional designer, or you just go get products that can go out to market sufficient for purpose now? So that's a very tricky... question. And I don't think we have the best and sufficient level of instructional designers out there. [TP_Q, a private ATO, 25+ years in training and consultancy]

Because, I think if you do it on the basis of associate, that means you'll engage people on your associate basis. So, that... the person can function in multi-function, subject matter expert, instructional design, facilitator of learning, especially when moving to the blended learning space, not just classroom. And even for that matter, organisational development capability. Because you can train, you can facilitate, you can have great instructional design, but when you are dealing with organisations, you are really dealing with multi variables of... culture, structure, strategy and people. So, it's a Superman requirement that we are asking for. You don't have that many... in terms of supply and demand going around. [TP_R, a private TP, 20+ years in training and consultancy]

These quotes highlight the shifting demands and capability needs in the sector, the different ways of conceptualising the work of the sector e.g. “but when you are dealing with organisations, you are really dealing with multi variables of... culture, structure, strategy and people. So, it's a Superman requirement that we are asking for”.

When it comes to organising professional development activities for their staff, TPs’ top challenges were lack of funding or the training was too expensive (40%, n = 116), inability to spare more staff time for training (37.2%, n = 108), and hard to find time to organise training (29%, n = 84). The same top two reasons were the same barriers that AE reported, i.e., affordability (too expensive) and conflict with work. A higher proportion of non-WSQ TPs than WSQ TPs reported lack of funds/ training being too expensive as one of the barriers in organising professional development activities for their staff. About 23% of TPs did not find any challenge in organising professional development activities, see table 36.

Table 36: Barriers to organising professional development reported by TPs

Challenges by TP Overall WSQ TP non-WSQ TP

n % n % n %

Lack of funds/ training is expensive 116 40 45 30.2 59 48.8

Not able to spare more staff time for training 108 37.2 63 42.3 41 33.9

Hard to find the time to organise training 84 29.0 46 30.9 35 28.9

Difficulty finding TP who can deliver where and when we want it

Staff are not keen

A lack of local training providers 63 21.7 32 21.5 20 16.5

57 19.7 28 18.8 21 17.4

46 15.9 17 11.4 19 15.7