tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/victorian-tafe-cuts-3139/articlesVictorian TAFE cuts – The Conversation2018-05-04T03:50:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/961022018-05-04T03:50:21Z2018-05-04T03:50:21ZFree TAFE in Victoria: who benefits and why other states should consider it<p>The Victorian government’s budget announcement on May 1 included a significant reinvestment in TAFE. Courses in <a href="http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/educationstate/Pages/freetafe.aspx">30 key skill priority areas</a> will be free from the beginning of 2019. </p>
<p>This bold move signals a shift away from the <a href="http://www.voced.edu.au/content/ngv%3A67289">market approach</a> to technical and vocational education. This approach saw many people caught up in <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/a-serious-matter-tafe-freezes-enrolments-amid-concerns-of-rorting-20170919-gyk867.html">fees debacles</a> who received low quality training through the dodgy market practices of predatory education providers pursuing financial advantage and profit. This policy puts TAFE squarely back at the centre of a trusted technical and vocational education and training system. </p>
<h2>What’s changing?</h2>
<p>The market approach treated TAFEs as no different from private providers, putting them in direct competition with each other. Yet, TAFE institutions are not able to just target profitable courses and are required to offer the social support in ways private providers do not. </p>
<p>The Victorian government’s new <a href="https://www.budget.vic.gov.au/explore-our-priorities/right-skills-job">budget policy for TAFE</a> represents a measured shift away from an over focus on how easily bodies can move in and out of education markets. TAFE institutions across the state can now consolidate their role as key public education institutions. These institutions are part of the critical infrastructure that builds community and individual abilities to cope with and adjust to changing social and economic circumstances. </p>
<p>TAFE has occupied that middle institutional role of attending to local, community and industry and employment needs in ways that universities and school don’t and can’t. </p>
<p>State governments, as the owners of TAFE institutions, have a vital role in ensuring skills and education infrastructure is sustainable. This budget investment moves a significant way toward ensuring just that. </p>
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<p>The TAFE teaching workforce in Victoria recently reached <a href="https://www.aeuvic.asn.au/new-tafe-agreement-puts-teachers-centre-rebuilding-tafe">a new enterprise agreement</a> that will also improve teaching conditions. This will ensure TAFE has a workforce that can ensure quality education. </p>
<h2>Who benefits?</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/educationstate/Pages/freetafe.aspx">free courses</a> being made available from 2019 will significantly contribute to skills mix required for the Australian state with the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3218.0">fastest growing population</a>. Many of the pre-apprenticeship, Certificate II level courses will open options for senior school aged students not seeking a path to university, and provide them with the opportunities to learn skills for work. </p>
<p>Certificate III courses in agriculture, aged care, civil construction and concreting will ensure Victoria develops the right skills mix for the growing population. It will also ensure skilled workers can participate in the road and <a href="https://www.budget.vic.gov.au/explore-our-priorities/right-skills-job">rail infrastructure projects</a> that have already started. </p>
<p>Metropolitan and rural communities around Victoria will also benefit immensely. In some rural settings, where school <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/the-education-system-has-failed-students-in-rural-and-regional-areas/news-story/ebac4766ef978588f4754068aee0da14">completion rates are lower</a> than those in metropolitan areas, Certificate II, III and IV courses will provide a way for young people to stay connected to education and ensure transitions to employment. </p>
<p>The abolition of fees for diploma level courses in nursing, building and construction, community services and accounting is a game changer. It will ensure TAFEs in Victoria are full service education institutions. This means pre-tertiary and tertiary level education options will be freely available to people who will make their future through going to TAFE. Tertiary education in the form of diplomas has been a tradition for many individuals, families and communities. </p>
<h2>Private providers say the policy isn’t equitable</h2>
<p>The peak member organisation representing private providers, <a href="https://www.acpet.edu.au/">ACPET</a>, was quick to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/private-training-providers-fear-they-ll-be-penalised-under-tafe-boost-20180502-p4zcva.html?csp=d42371e611111c536bdbc91b68e4a696%200">express concern</a> about this budget initiative. This bold move by the Victorian government to fund publicly-owned TAFE institutions is being lambasted as not equitable. This notion of equity is curious, as it’s more concerned with equity as revenue and capital, rather than access and participation for those who are often left behind as a consequence of social changes. </p>
<p>Private providers will not be funded by the state government as part of this initiative, so they have argued students will be limited in their choice of providers. </p>
<h2>Re-centring TAFE as a key institution</h2>
<p>The Victorian government’s commitment to TAFE through the provision of free courses will re-instill trust in a technical and vocational education and training system. The sector badly let down the Australian public when the VET FEE HELP loans scandals got out of hand and did much to undermine TAFE and the wider VET system.</p>
<p>As Professor Leesa Wheeahan, from the University of Toronto, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-22/tafe-at-tipping-point/9071838">has eloquently argued</a> :</p>
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<p>we’ve got to move back from the disastrous policies of the last 10 years and start reinvesting in TAFE as the key anchor institutions of communities and regions.</p>
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<p>The opportunities that will be afforded through free TAFE will build the basis for a more equitable Victoria. Those who are sufficiently prepared will now be able to access education options that will have personal and economic benefits. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-from-victorias-tafe-mistakes-34646">Learning from Victoria's TAFE mistakes</a>
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<p>The policy misadventures that saw TAFE emaciated, and the community lose faith in the vocational education and training sector, caused considerable individual and social damage.</p>
<p>The Andrews labor government was elected on platform to <a href="https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/under-labor-tafe-has-a-future-and-students-have-a-choice/">rescue TAFE</a>. The progress has been slow, and it would be premature to say this has been fully achieved. But this reinvestment in TAFE in Victoria resets the course of TAFE as a key public education institution for the community, industry and individuals. This represents long awaited signs for cautious optimism about TAFE’s future in Victoria. </p>
<p>Other states and territories could follow suit and similarly reinvest in their TAFE systems through a comparable policy initiative.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Pardy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>30 skill priority areas will be free from the beginning of 2019 in Victoria. Students will feel the most benefit, while private providers say the policy is not equitable.John Pardy, Education Lecturer and Researcher, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/131782013-04-03T00:53:28Z2013-04-03T00:53:28ZExcuses for heavy-handed TAFE sackings don’t hold up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21938/original/8fdbbc2c-1364865375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4256%2C2828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Last week’s wholesale sackings of TAFE leaders is just another chapter in the chaotic story of the vocational reforms.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Joe Castro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the eve of Good Friday, in apparent attempt to bury a bad news story, the Victorian government <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-28/half-of-victoria27s-tafe-board-chairs-sacked/4600426">sacked seven of the chairs of its 14 standalone TAFEs</a> and two more were to “retire”.</p>
<p>These sackings came as no surprise. In October last year, Victoria’s Coalition government shepherded through Parliament <a href="http://the-scan.com/2012/10/29/vic-government-takes-more-control-over-tafe-boards/">amendments to the Education and Training Reform Act</a> which severely circumscribed the powers of TAFE governing boards and gave the minister the power to hire and fire chairs and board members.</p>
<p>Under previous arrangements, TAFE chairs were selected by the board members, half of whom were appointed on the recommendation of the skills minister.</p>
<p>As you would expect, the Victorian Labor opposition has <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/victorian-tafe-chairs-sacked/story-e6frgcjx-1226608521445">roundly condemned</a> the sackings, describing them as political payback for the outspoken criticism by the Victorian TAFE sector of last year’s dramatic <a href="https://theconversation.com/victorian-tafe-cuts-an-attack-on-working-people-7302">cuts to TAFE funding</a>, in favour of private VET providers.</p>
<p>But the irony is that in 2010 the then government, and now opposition, proposed more or less the same powers to hire and fire. Peter Hall, then opposition spokesperson, now higher education minister, <a href="http://tex.parliament.vic.gov.au/bin/texhtmlt?form=jVicHansard.dumpall&db=hansard91&dodraft=0&house=COUNCIL&speech=7206&activity=Second+Reading&title=EDUCATION+AND+TRAINING+REFORM+AMENDMENT+%28SKILLS%29+BILL&date1=16&date2=September&date3=2010&query=true%250">said in 2010</a>:</p>
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<p>This is an unnecessary grab for power… The minister suggested there needed to be more lines of accountability because these institutes are engaging in commercial activities and as they receive significant funding from the taxpayer they need to be accountable to the taxpayer. They are already accountable, and they are already engaging in significant commercial activity.</p>
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<p>But now Peter Hall says that this “grab for power” is necessary to make TAFE more “commercially oriented”, in line with the recommendations of the <a href="http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/department/tafereformpanel.pdf">Report of the TAFE Reform Panel</a>. </p>
<p>Well, the panel did advise a number of measures to make TAFE more “commercially oriented” but nowhere did it recommend wholesale board sackings.</p>
<p>While the government hasn’t given reasons for the sackings, one can reasonably assume that the chairs were dispatched because of a perceived lack of business expertise.</p>
<p>Peter Hall obviously has very high expectations.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kane.com.au/who-we-are/directors">Jonathon Forster</a>, who Hall sacked as Holmesglen’s chair, is the founder and now executive chair of Kane Constructions, a company with an annual turnover of $500 million, 285 full time employees and which operates throughout the east coast of Australia and overseas.</p>
<p>And in his own seat covering the La Trobe Valley, Hall has sacked <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-gittins/35/147/339">David Gittins</a> as chair of GippsTAFE. Gittins is just the managing director of the Valley’s biggest car dealership and has a background in community service (he was, for example, the founding chairman of <a href="http://www.lifeeducation.org.au/what-we-do">Life Education</a> for Doncaster Templestowe in 1989-1992).</p>
<p>The government might have justified the sackings on the basis that the institutions themselves have somehow failed to realise commercial opportunities and have been poorly governed and managed.</p>
<p>The government didn’t make that case because it’s not one that can substantiated: all the evidence points the other way.</p>
<p>Data published by the <a href="http://www.ncver.edu.au/publications/2550.html">National Centre for Vocational Education Research</a> show that Victorian TAFE institutes have led the way in tapping non-government streams of revenue, which one could reasonably take to be an indicator of commercial orientation. In 2011, fee-for-service activity yielded Victorian TAFES $475.3 million in revenue, some 44% of the Australian TAFE sector total. </p>
<p>The larger Victorian TAFEs all have large offshore operations. <a href="http://www.nmit.edu.au/pdf/annual_reports/nmit_annualreport2011.pdf">Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE</a> (NMIT), for example, delivered programs outside Australia with 25 partner institutions, involving 23,000 students, in countries such as China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. NMIT’s total income in 2011 of $153.6 million included “extraneous”, mainly fee-for-service, income of $64 million (about 42% of the total).</p>
<p>NCVER data also show Victorian TAFEs to be the most “efficient” in terms of the composition of their expenditure: 68 cents of every dollar was on actual training provision and support as against an Australian average of 63 cents in the dollar. </p>
<p>And Victorian TAFEs aren’t remarkably profligate in benefits to staff: employee costs comprised 49.7% of expenditure as against an Australian TAFE sector total of 54.4% (<a href="http://www.innovation.gov.au/HigherEducation/ResourcesAndPublications/HigherEducationPublications/FinanceReports/Documents/Finance2011.pdf">university sector employee costs</a> averaged 57.5% of overall expenditure in 2011).</p>
<p>You might think the TAFE Reform Panel would have looked at these sorts of issues in detail but, in what appears to be a classic case of policy-based evidence, the Panel only made passing reference to the comparative performance of Victoria’s TAFE sector (14 words on page 56, that I can find).</p>
<p>The Panel has recommended to the government that TAFEs need greater autonomy, including in capital raising and investment, to enable them to operate effectively in the “competitively neutral market” the government is putting in place. The <a href="http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/department/modernworkforce.pdf">government says it accepts this</a> but, on the precept that you should start as you mean to go, sacking half the TAFE board chairs and foreshadowing a spill of all TAFE board positions seems not to be an auspicious beginning.</p>
<p>In the meantime, there’s the federal <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=ee/tafe/tor.htm">inquiry into TAFE</a>, which has a remit to look at all aspects of the TAFE equation, including that increasingly quaint notion of the contribution that TAFE can make to community and personal development, which modern governments no longer seem prepared to fund. </p>
<p>The inquiry has called for submissions by Thursday 18 April 2013.</p>
<p>This inquiry provides an opportunity at a critical time in TAFEs history to properly define the role of the public VET provider in contributing to Australia’s continuing economic <em>and</em> social development. It also needs to set out, in broad terms, what is needed to support that role. </p>
<p>The overriding question before the inquiry is whether Australia can afford to allow the policy-driven descent of TAFE into a fractured, residualised system, with no apparent community purpose, as is seemingly occurring in Victoria.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Sheehan works with both public and private VET providers. He is a Senior Fellow with the LH Martin Institute, which analyses and comments on current VET sector issues.</span></em></p>On the eve of Good Friday, in apparent attempt to bury a bad news story, the Victorian government sacked seven of the chairs of its 14 standalone TAFEs and two more were to “retire”. These sackings came…Brendan Sheehan, Senior Fellow, LH Martin Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128082013-03-13T23:53:28Z2013-03-13T23:53:28ZNapthine falls short: TAFE needs more than a bandaid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21216/original/74j8c2rw-1363150757.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C6%2C4249%2C2669&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The announcement this week of funding for Victorian TAFEs won't make up for previous cuts.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Julian Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There might be a new premier in Victoria, but it seems there’s still no good news for TAFEs. The $200 million in structural adjustment funding <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/tertiary-education/tafes-new-200m-no-fix-for-past-cuts-20130312-2fym7.html">announced this week</a> is certainly welcome, but it is simply too little, too late.</p>
<p>The Victorian government should have made such provision almost a year ago when it abruptly took <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/tafe-cuts-leave-system-reeling-20120507-1y8oq.html">a meat cleaver to TAFE funding</a>, hacking out $300 million.</p>
<p>The damage from these cuts has been monumental. But what is more worrying is the way these cuts have signalled a changing role for TAFEs in Victoria with repercussions for the quality of vocational education and the wider economy.</p>
<h2>Cut to the bone</h2>
<p>You didn’t need a crystal ball to foresee that the former Baillieu government’s cuts would result in severe and immediate challenges for the public TAFE network. </p>
<p>In large part because the cuts had almost immediate effect, TAFEs had little time to put their houses in order. Within weeks, despite the calming assurances by the Victorian Tertiary education and skills minister that <a href="http://the-scan.com/2012/06/06/the-spin-of-victorian-tafe-cuts/">all was well</a>, redundancies were rolling through the sector, amounting by year’s end to several thousand. There was the wholesale dumping of courses; fee increases; and campus closures in communities with low education and training attainments.</p>
<p>It could be argued that, over time, rationalisation might have positive outcomes in forcing TAFEs to thoroughly review their operations. They could have adapted to become more agile and more specialised, dumping marginal offerings and concentrating on areas of strength.</p>
<p>But the point is, TAFEs really haven’t had much time to work this through – and no assistance to date. So the sector has panicked and responded without regard to overall balance and what is now apparently the quaint notion of “community interest”. </p>
<p>The $200 million announced this week - $50 million over four years – is in no way “compensation” for the $300 million hacked out of annual TAFE budgets. TAFEs are still left with a deficit of $250 million a year. </p>
<p>The $200 million is also only for the express purpose of assisting TAFEs – principally the regional TAFEs – to “transition”. But in four years, the $50 million a year in structural adjustment funding will be gone but the $300 million a year cut in operational funding will continue.</p>
<h2>A changing role</h2>
<p>This latest announcement forms the <a href="http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/department/modernworkforce.pdf">government’s response</a> to an “independent” <a href="http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/about/department/tafereformpanel.pdf">review of TAFE</a> that was looking at how to foster a “strong sustainable TAFE sector in an open and competitive training market”. </p>
<p>You would have thought the government might have more usefully commissioned such a review before the event of the full blown “marketisation” it unleashed in May last year.</p>
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<span class="caption">Teachers and students protest after cuts to TAFE last year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Joe Castro</span></span>
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<p>Be that as it may, the government’s response confirms a shift towards the role of public sector TAFE providers, first revealed when it removed “full service provision funding” last year.</p>
<p>In its <a href="http://training.qld.gov.au/industry/skills-training-taskforce/index.html">submission to the Roche review</a> of TAFE in Queensland, <a href="http://www.tda.edu.au/cb_pages/files/20121022%20Supplementary%20submission%20to%20the%20Queensland%20Skills%20and%20Training%20Taskforce_1.pdf">TAFE Directors Australia</a>, in justification of maintaining TAFE funding, observed that as publicly owned entities, TAFE institutes at their core have a commitment to “the community good” which a private, for-profit entity, no matter how publicly-spirited it might be, simply does not. </p>
<p>The raison d’etre of a private provider is to make a profit. If it delivers a community service, this is a bonus, but it’s not what drives the provider. While any surplus generated by a TAFE institute is, by definition, reinvested in community service activities.</p>
<p>There’s to be none of that namby pamby nonsense henceforth in Victoria.</p>
<p>In its report, the independent review panel recommended that the government “should clearly define the community service obligations that it wishes to fund in the Victorian vocational training market and the process for identifying and costing them” (recommendation 18).</p>
<p>The government agreed and defined a community service obligation as a service that would not be provided commercially without additional funding. It concluded “there are no requirements that currently meet this definition.”</p>
<p>That makes sense in the context of the government having already abolished full service funding and a higher funding rate for TAFEs over private providers. But what you then see is that, in the case of meeting the special needs of certain students (such as students with a disability), a provider either has to provide at a direct loss to the bottom line (not likely in these tough times), reduce the scale or quality of the service, cross subsidise delivery by increased fees to other students or cease delivery altogether. </p>
<p>One of the first course casualties of TAFE funding cuts in Victoria was the teaching of <a href="http://the-scan.com/2012/05/23/tafe-cuts-end-kangans-auslan-diploma/">AUSLAN at Kangan Batman TAFE</a>. And throughout the TAFE sector, support services for students with special needs have been drastically scaled back.</p>
<h2>The open market</h2>
<p>Against all this, the Victorian government points to a dramatic growth in government-subsidised enrolments from approximately 380,000 in 2008 to more than 670,000 in 2012. </p>
<p>Most of this growth has been in the private Registered Training Organisation (RTO) sector (plus 76%) as against the TAFE sector (plus 11%). Private RTO provision has grown from a 34% share of government-subsidised in 2008 to 58% in 2012.</p>
<p>Perhaps this is, as the government suggests, a case of people voting with their feet. Or perhaps it’s a case of reduced quality of provision. </p>
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<span class="caption">Premier Ted Baillieu defended his TAFE cuts when he was in power.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Julian Smith</span></span>
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<p>Certainly the Victorian government has had its concerns with the quality of provision as evidenced by the fact that the number of private RTOs eligible to provide subsidised training was slashed this year by 20% (from around 500 to 400).</p>
<p>And just this week, the National Skills Standards Council has issued a call for a new “Australian Vocational Qualifications System” in order to protect the economy from a “failure in confidence” in qualifications. John Dawkins, the chair of the NSSC, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/new-training-system-could-spark-college-exodus/story-e6frgcjx-1226594945302">told The Australian newspaper</a> that “underperforming” RTOS could destabilise the training system and labour market by undermining the integrity of qualifications and “providing unfair competition to better providers”. Dawkins said
“we can assume an employer looking at qualifications from a TAFE or some of the better private providers would not have a question about the quality of that qualification. The question is, what about the others?”</p>
<p>A good question indeed, and all the more relevant after the dramatic changes that we’ve seen in the Victorian vocational system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Sheehan works with both public providers and private RTOs.</span></em></p>There might be a new premier in Victoria, but it seems there’s still no good news for TAFEs. The $200 million in structural adjustment funding announced this week is certainly welcome, but it is simply…Brendan Sheehan, Senior Fellow, LH Martin Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96872012-09-20T01:09:32Z2012-09-20T01:09:32ZTAFE cuts will affect everyone: state governments should think again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15654/original/bz4rnbcc-1348038479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C12%2C4236%2C2707&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The role of TAFEs in supporting innovation by anticipating knowledge and skills can't be easily picked up by universities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AAP Image/Joe Castro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>TAFE staff <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-20/government-warned-not-to-ignore-tafe-protest/4271310?section=vic">are striking today</a> to demonstrate their opposition to unparalleled funding cutbacks totalling almost $300 million imposed by the Victorian State Government. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/deeper-tafe-cuts-revealed-in-secret-documents-20120913-25v7o.html">A recent leaked cabinet paper</a> summarising so called “TAFE transition plans” has incited outrage. The plans show that campuses will close, TAFE institutes will merge, at least two thousand staff will be sacked, students will pay higher fees and TAFE institutes will cut provision or close down courses.</p>
<p>The Commonwealth government is <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/tafe-may-lose-another-400m-as-canberra-threatens-baillieu-over-cuts-20120915-25zei.html">now threatening</a> to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for vocational education and training.</p>
<p>However, the Victorian government is not alone. The New South Wales government <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/nsw-announces-education-saving-measures/story-e6frf7kf-1226471844983">is cutting</a> $80 million and 800 teaching jobs from TAFE, while increasing student fees by 9.5%. A Queensland government review of vocational education and training <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-skills-and-training-taskforce-report-recommends-closing-38-tafe-campuses-in-queensland/story-e6freoof-1226467177747">recommends closing 38 TAFE campuses</a> and the Queensland government has cut $78.8 million from training, tertiary education and employment.</p>
<p>These state governments have failed to appreciate how important TAFE is to our economy and the community more generally. To them the vital work TAFE does is invisible.</p>
<p>But while TAFE’s effect might not be visible to politicians, it is an essential economic, social and cultural support for Australian communities and regions. Without strong TAFEs, there could be serious changes to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/tafe-cuts-will-harm-the-economy-boost-crime-rate-experts-9597">social cohesion and economic future</a>. </p>
<h2>The benefits of TAFE</h2>
<p>TAFEs are often one of the biggest employers in regional or outer metropolitan areas and a focus for the community.</p>
<p>All TAFE directors in Australia will be on their local regional economic development committee and work together with local government and industry leaders to identify economic problems and skill requirements. </p>
<p>All TAFEs have staff working with schools to support better outcomes for students, and they work with local communities to develop programs and support for disadvantaged students. They provide pathways to higher education and to the professions, and in doing so, support Australia’s need for highly educated workforce and social mobility. They run courses that meet local economic or social needs even when it isn’t good business sense to do so.</p>
<p>Perhaps the least visible aspect of the work of TAFEs is how they anticipate the knowledge and skills that will be needed to support innovation. Just as universities create new knowledge for society and train the professions, TAFE’s role as an educational and training institution is to anticipate how workplaces are changing, and the kind of knowledge and skills that will be needed for tomorrow and not just today.</p>
<p>Every Australian has benefited from the contribution TAFE has made to economic development and social inclusion. Cutting TAFE is akin to a farmer eating rather than planting their seeds. We are cutting now rather than investing in the future. </p>
<h2>Can universities take over?</h2>
<p>Universities and TAFE play complementary roles, but whereas the role that universities play is well understood, TAFE’s role is not. Without TAFE, new knowledge that is generated in universities will not be translated into new work practices.</p>
<p>Universities can never take over the space vacated by TAFE, even if they wanted to. Universities might offer more “middle level” programs, such as diplomas and associate degrees, but they can’t offer the range of programs that TAFE offers at all skill levels. They also don’t have the same links with workplaces that TAFEs have, nor do they have the same geographic reach of TAFE. </p>
<p>There are hundreds of TAFE campuses in Australia in cities and regional and rural areas, which is the very reason many universities want to partner with TAFE institutes. Closing TAFE campuses in regions will reduce access to vocational and higher education.</p>
<h2>Political will</h2>
<p>The problem is that state governments don’t understand the invisible role TAFE plays. Instead, they are mesmerised by the invisible hand of the market and think it will all turn out in the end: it won’t and we will all be the poorer for it.</p>
<p>TAFE is far more than a “provider” of courses that is interchangeable with private providers. It is an educational institution that contributes to economic, social and cultural development, which private for profit providers can never replicate.</p>
<p><em>This piece was co-authored by Brendan Sheehan, a Melbourne policy consultant and former Skills Victoria executive. He publishes <a href="http://the-scan.com/">The Scan</a> which reports on developments in tertiary education in Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9687/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leesa Wheelahan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>TAFE staff are striking today to demonstrate their opposition to unparalleled funding cutbacks totalling almost $300 million imposed by the Victorian State Government. A recent leaked cabinet paper summarising…Leesa Wheelahan, Associate Professor, LH Martin Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73022012-06-05T20:27:36Z2012-06-05T20:27:36ZVictorian TAFE cuts: an attack on working people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/11380/original/hrpwmxsy-1338861648.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cutting TAFE funding effects the people that need education and training most.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The phrase “class warfare” has been thrown around a lot in the media and within political circles recently – usually without much basis. </p>
<p>But in Victoria it is very real; the current Liberal Government has declared open class warfare on the state’s workers through the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3515693.htm">drastic downsizing of publicly funded TAFE institutes</a>. </p>
<p>TAFE in Victoria has a historical and visceral link to the education of working people. But it is under attack because the state government has gone for what they think is a soft target. After all, those who rely most on publicly funded vocational education are those who have minimal access to government or mainstream media to protest the changes.</p>
<p>TAFE groups are vigorously <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/tafes-campaign-on-community-attitudes/story-e6frgcjx-1226383807469">campaigning against</a> the changes, but you can imagine if higher education was treated in the same way, there would be nationwide outrage. Meanwhile, the human impact of these changes will last well beyond the next electoral cycle.</p>
<h2>The wrong changes</h2>
<p>In its <a href="http://www.budget.vic.gov.au/">most recent budget</a> the Victorian Government set aside $1.2 billion for vocational education and training (VET) needs and introduced a range of new fee-setting conditions to control a projected funding blowout of $400 million. </p>
<p>In addition to the fee changes they decided to remove the $170 million Full Service Provider payment to TAFE institutes, used for meeting an essential range of student service requirements. </p>
<p>The new funding model has been openly engineered to reduce the size of the sector and contribute to a budget surplus at the educational cost of Victoria’s working people. With course closures being announced across the sector it is unlikely the full $1.2 billion will ever be spent. This is at a time when investment in vocational education is crucial. </p>
<p>But this is not solely down to a Liberal government. The disappointing truth is this tactical retreat from publicly funded vocational education began with the previous Labor government.</p>
<h2>Building communities</h2>
<p>TAFE institutes and those that preceded them have always had a special position in Australian society, building the capacity of people and their communities. Often many students are those requiring more than one chance to find their way through post-secondary education.</p>
<p>There are dozens of TAFE teachers with stories about students who left school at Year 9 but enrolled in the TAFE system to seek a better life with better qualifications. But making further education for early school leavers more expensive, threatens to disengage those who left school undereducated and unqualified. This can only mean greater unemployment and <a href="http://www.humeweekly.com.au/news/local/news/general/tafe-cuts-raise-crime-fears/2579041.aspx">social exclusion</a>.</p>
<p>It is the real community capability building of TAFE that is lost in the economic ideology of the current and previous policies. Financial graphs, pie charts, and tables of numbers do not measure or promote the social mission that is an inseparable part of TAFE identity.</p>
<h2>A right to public education</h2>
<p>It will now be hard to define TAFE as public education given up to 70% of operational costs will be paid directly by students. People’s rights to well-funded public education have been forgotten to initiate an ideologically constructed user pays market. </p>
<p>In no way is this a strategy to drive education with social benefit.</p>
<p>The attractiveness of affordable fees and concessions has always drawn those from low socio-economic backgrounds to TAFE. There they have been supported by a range of services that include language and literacy classes, councillors, libraries and learning support. </p>
<p>The $170 million Full Service Provider funding underpinned these services. To retain any reasonable array of student services TAFE institutes will have to pass that cost onto students, further pushing up fees in 2013. </p>
<p>A user pays system is only effective if the user can afford to pay, concession rates in the new fee model are in some cases almost the same as current non-discounted fees and no concessions are available for Diploma or Advanced Diploma qualifications. </p>
<p>Students enrolled in those higher qualifications can access deferred fee payment through VET-Fee-Help, but lower level qualifications are ineligible.</p>
<h2>Prisons or schools?</h2>
<p>The current political direction, pursued through successive governments shows a preference for building prisons over building communities. Good education policy is left behind, while a desalinisation plant sits idle. These are the places where real investment of public money has been wasted. </p>
<p>To continue to offer accessible vocational education to the workers of Victoria the Victorian TAFE system requires rescue from four years of ill planned policy, not brutal and disruptive change. </p>
<p>Attacking the education institutes of the workers may well backfire as the tens of thousands of people that use TAFE each year and their families remember and take their dissatisfaction to the polls.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David McLean is employed as a TAFE Manager.</span></em></p>The phrase “class warfare” has been thrown around a lot in the media and within political circles recently – usually without much basis. But in Victoria it is very real; the current Liberal Government…David McLean, TAFE Manager, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/72962012-05-30T04:29:27Z2012-05-30T04:29:27ZVictorian TAFE chaos: a lesson in how not to reform vocational education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/11151/original/tyvj9vxw-1338266138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C6%2C634%2C420&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Victorian government's TAFE cuts have shown other states exactly what not to do.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Takver</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For years, those concerned with vocational education and training have worried about how to lift the public profile of TAFEs. But what has taken many years for some – without much success – the Baillieu government in Victoria has done in a matter of weeks.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/tafe-cuts-leave-system-reeling-20120507-1y8oq.html">state government’s cuts to TAFE</a> in the May budget has put vocational training front and centre of public attention. All the while demonstrating a surprisingly deep well of public regard for these educational institutions.</p>
<p>There have been <a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/tafe-in-victoria/">literally hundreds</a> of media reports on the funding cuts worth $300 million, in all forms of media – metropolitan, regional and national. </p>
<p>At first, even the Victorian higher education minister Peter Hall was opposed to the cuts and considered <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/calls-for-hall-to-quit-over-tafe-budget-cuts-outrage-20120503-1y1ua.html">resigning in protest</a>. Although he is now vigorously <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/05/24/3509859.htm">defending them</a> as reforms that make TAFE “better”. </p>
<p>So how has TAFE come to this point in Victoria? And are we likely to see similar “reforms” adopted elsewhere?</p>
<h2>Cut to the bone</h2>
<p>To give you an idea of what will happen to TAFEs under the cuts, the University of Ballarat <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/files/tafe-restructure-consultation-paper_11-1.pdf">TAFE restructure consultation paper</a> revealed that changes would leave the university $20 million in debt by 2013, reduce its total TAFE activity by 30-40% and reduce services throughout the rest of the university.</p>
<p>The changes have also meant that Victoria’s only <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auslan">Australian sign language</a> <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/tafe-cuts-put-an-end-to-auslan-diploma-20120522-1z3ae.html">course</a> will go. </p>
<p>In fairness, these changes haven’t all been down to the Baillieu Coalition government. It inherited “skills reform” from its Labor predecessor, which opened up public funding of vocational educational and training provision to all comers. Since then there has been an explosive growth in Vocational Education and Training (VET) – and with it the call on funding – following the “uncapping” of enrolments.</p>
<p>While training enrolments in skill shortage areas such as carpentry, plumbing, civil construction, aged care and nursing went up 10% over the past couple of years, programs in fitness and sport coaching went up by up to 4000%. This, the government <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/skill-reform-stoush/story-e6frgcjx-1226172111688">has argued</a>, is why the funding was unsustainable.</p>
<h2>Rorting rife</h2>
<p>The government also says that the system has been shamelessly rorted with enrolled students being paid to undertake training, multiple enrolments to boost payments for training, abuse of the the <a href="http://www.easyrpl.com.au/">Recognition of Prior Learning</a> assessment to obtain the 100% subsidy and the offer of free gifts <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/minister-rages-against-rorts-for-courses-20120526-1zbzq.html">such as iPads</a> for students to enrol.</p>
<p>Providers have also been granting diplomas on the basis of 60-80 hours work even though the <a href="http://www.aqf.edu.au/AbouttheAQF/AQFQualifications/tabid/98/Default.aspx">Australian Qualifications Framework</a> requires about 600–800 hours for a diploma.</p>
<p>The government has vowed to crack down on the rorting but there are two details which have been ignored. First is that the explosive growth in fitness training and sports coaching has taken place in the private not public sector.</p>
<p>Second, every single identified instance of out and out rorting and illegality has been by private providers (although Hall has pointed to legal though dubious practices by public TAFEs, as well).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/11169/original/63g58tgm-1338273267.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/11169/original/63g58tgm-1338273267.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/11169/original/63g58tgm-1338273267.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/11169/original/63g58tgm-1338273267.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/11169/original/63g58tgm-1338273267.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/11169/original/63g58tgm-1338273267.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/11169/original/63g58tgm-1338273267.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Victorian Treasurer Kim Wells unveiling the state budget earlier this month.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joe Castro</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In that context, cutting TAFE funding by $300 million and placing TAFE funding on the same basis as funding to private providers as a response to the evident problems with “skills reform” in Victoria is counter-intuitive. </p>
<p>The Victorian government is essentially compounding a mistake with another mistake.</p>
<h2>Other states to follow?</h2>
<p>Other states are undertaking their own processes of “skills reform”, as part of national arrangements, which will see market reforms, a greater role for private providers and access to public funding. </p>
<p>They have been closely watching and deconstructing the Victorian process precisely because it provides a great template in how <strong>not</strong> to reform vocational training.</p>
<p>After all, this open slather has resulted in a budget blow-out, a misallocation of funding to low priority training and millions of dollars of profit from the public purse to private providers, as well as debasing qualifications. Not to mention a public system which is now destabilised with big gaps likely in provision and stranded public assets.</p>
<p>South Australia launches its own more market oriented system on 1 July and shows every sign of having drawn rational conclusions. It will limit places rather than prices to avoid runaway growth in its forthcoming training market, as it strives to avoid the problems that have plagued Victoria. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/sa-qld-reject-vic-training-changes/story-e6frgcjx-1226365988721">The Australian reported</a> that Elaine Bensted, chief executive of TAFE South Australia, said she’d been “horrified” by the funding rates provided by the Victorian government and that South Australia’s rates would be far more generous. </p>
<p>The state will also limit the number of providers with access to the funding through an “onerous” application process. Victoria has 536 colleges approved to teach government-funded courses, after the number of private providers snowballed from 200 to 430 in three years. </p>
<p>Bensted has also said South Australia had received 200 applications but had so far approved just six providers, six weeks out from launching its own training market. South Australia also intends to cap publicly funded enrolments in disciplines showing signs of outlandish growth, such as the 20-fold increase in fitness instructor enrolments in Victoria.</p>
<p>The Deputy Director-General of Training and Tertiary Education Queensland Deb Daly has also vowed “<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/sa-qld-reject-vic-training-changes/story-e6frgcjx-1226365988721">not do what the Victorians did</a>”. She said Queensland wants to avoid cost blowouts that necessitated rapid changes, unlike Victoria which has overhauled its skills system three times since last September.</p>
<h2>Is there a Plan B?</h2>
<p>You would think that, given the furore that’s erupted and rumblings that regional Coalition members are none too happy, the Bailieu government might be working on “plan B”. </p>
<p>Apparently not. The government is standing firm in public and aggressively defending its budget measures. The Victorian opposition too seems to be staying well away. </p>
<p>The game changer may well be the Commonwealth government, which has in its purse some $435 million in funding for Victoria under the <a href="http://www.coag.gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/2012-04-13/docs/NPA_Skills_Reform.pdf">VET National Partnership Agreement</a> brokered at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/coag">Council of Australian Governments</a> in April, an agreement to which Victoria is a signatory. </p>
<p>Following an “<a href="http://the-scan.com/2012/05/24/feds-vic-square-off-on-tafe-funding/">emergency meeting</a>” with TAFE leaders, Commonwealth minister Chris Evans said that the Victorian government had failed to adequately address the Government’s concerns. He posed the question most people are asking:</p>
<p>How do you grow quality training and cut $300 million out of TAFEs?</p>
<p>It seems this question really has no credible answer.</p>
<p><em>This piece was co-authored by Brendan Sheehan and Leesa Wheelahan</em></p>
<p><em>Brendan Sheehan is a Melbourne policy consultant and former Skills Victoria
executive. He publishes The Scan every week which reports on developments in
tertiary education in Australia http://the-scan.com/.</em></p>
<p><em>Leesa Wheelahan is an associate professor at the LH Martin Institute at the
University of Melbourne.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This piece was co-authored by Brendan Sheehan and Leesa Wheelahan.
Brendan Sheehan is a Melbourne policy consultant and former Skills Victoria
executive. He publishes The Scan every week which reports on developments in
tertiary education in Australia <a href="http://the-scan.com/">http://the-scan.com/</a>.</span></em></p>For years, those concerned with vocational education and training have worried about how to lift the public profile of TAFEs. But what has taken many years for some – without much success – the Baillieu…Leesa Wheelahan, Associate Professor, LH Martin Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.