VET Knowledge Bank timelines


History of VET in Australia

The VET Knowledge Bank contains a suite of products that aims to provide a collected memory of VET reference information. It contains the following timelines:

Australian VET policy initiatives: 1998-2018

Australia's vocational education and training system has transformed over the past 21 years in response to changing economic and societal needs. This timeline helps understand the scale of change and the individual policies, programs or initiatives that have shaped VET at both the national and state and territory level.

COAG Ministerial Councils and its committees and advisory bodies: 1992-2018

This timeline captures the different Ministerial Councils responsible for education and training - from the ANTA Ministerial Council (MINCO) to the present COAG Industry and Skills Council (CISC) - and their committees and advisory bodies and shows their evolution during this period.

Governing VET in Australia: 1992-2018

This timeline shows the Prime Ministers, Federal ministers and the Commonwealth departments responsible for skills and training in Australia.

Landmark documents: 1954-2010

This timeline shows the key documents that have influenced the development of Australia's vocational education and training system.

Milestones in the history of VET: 1952-2018

This timeline highlights key events in the history of VET.

VET legislation: 1946-2018

This timeline lists past and current federal legislation for VET in Australia.


This online interactive timeline (also available a pdf document) provides a history of vocational education and training (VET) in Australia, with a focus on apprenticeships and traineeships, covering the period 1939-2015.

Tips on using the online interactive timeline

  1. Download this free third party Timeline Maker Viewer to access and view the timeline online.
  2. The timeline viewer allows you to view the timeline in three different ways:
    • the timeline data (Event Entry view)
    • a graphical representation of the timeline (Timeline Chart view)
    • a chronological table of events (Chronology view)
  3. Use the View menu or click on the Timeline Chart tab to view the timeline graph. Use the Zoom in button Zoom button on the top menu to make the timeline full size.
  4. Hover over an entry to display the information icon Information icon for that entry. Clicking on this icon will display more information about that entry.
  5. The timeline entries include key documents. To access these documents, click on the document icon Document icon against the relevant entry.
  6. To view the timeline as a chronological table, click on the Chronology tab.