Defining Our Own Agenda
The women's agenda for TAFE which had emerged with some coherence by the mid 1980s included child care, special programs for women seeking to enter or re-enter the workforce, targeting women's access to non- traditional occupations, redistribution of resources to traditional areas of women's training, structured entry-level training arrangements to cover women's traditional occupations, and more women in decision- making positions.

Launched in October 1992, the National Plan of Action for Women in TAFE was endorsed by all Australian governments. It had six agenda items: improve paths of entry for all women into accredited TAFE courses; improve women's successful participation in vocational training; improve the TAFE learning and physical environment for women; improve support services for women; ensure that women benefit equally from training for industry and award restructuring; increase the participation of women in TAFE decision-making. An evaluation of the outcomes from this Plan has recently been completed and a new national strategy for women in vocational education and training is being developed.

Despite these achievements, I believe that the agenda has run out of momentum. Not because it has been achieved, nor because it has become institutionalized (although there is some element of this) or ossified. But because it focused on public provision by TAFE and has been overtaken, if not overwhelmed, by the sheer brute force of the advocates of the National Training Reform Agenda. What then is an appropriate feminist agenda for vocational education and training? I suggest that there needs to be an agenda which is a mix of content and process objectives. My personal thoughts go as follows.

Build New Feminist Alliances:
First we need to build new alliances between women concerned with industrial training and women concerned with vocational education. These alliances should lie outside institutional forums. Second, we need to build alliances between women working in industry training in the private sector and women in the public sector. Third, and probably most importantly, we need to build alliances between these women and women working in the : community, particularly Aboriginal women, women with disabilities, and women of non-English speaking backgrounds. Finally, these alliances need to be informed by and connected with feminists working in the academy. A new political force, perhaps a national coalition of women in vocational education and training, is needed to ensure that there is a strong base from which to influence public policy and practice. Without a solid coalition of interests, women in each of these sectors will be picked off one by one, pitted against each other, and the possibility of real and sustained change will be lost.

Focus on local delivery and national networks:
From an access and equity perspective and from a market perspective, the actual delivery of training to women is equally important. By focusing feminist effort on delivery we are not abandoning our purchase on the policy agenda; rather we are building the base from which the policy agenda can be reshaped in the interests of women.

But the danger of complete localism is the lack of opportunity for women in vocational education and training to learn from each other. Thus a renewed focus on delivery must be supported through a national network. Given the penchant for, and dare I say, success of "best practice" approaches, a best practice strategy for women in vocational education and training has some potential.