VET
New territory for vocational training
The emerging polytechnic model straddles the interface of vocational training and higher education, and also addresses an anomaly in the area of support for student fees. By Meeuwis Boelen
The year 2013 marks the rise of the polytechnic, with both Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE( NMIT) and Holmesglen Institute having announced this model for the tertiary sector in partnership with a university.
In August, NMIT signed an agreement with La Trobe University to establish the Melbourne Polytechnic, to be based in NMIT’ s various campuses in the city’ s northern suburbs. In May, the Australian Polytechnic Network was announced, founded by the University of Canberra in partnership with Melbourne’ s Holmesglen Institute, Sydney’ s Northern and South-Western Institutes and Brisbane’ s Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE.
The label“ polytechnic” is not new to Australia’ s tertiary education sector. In 2009 the Tasmanian TAFE system was rebadged as the Tasmanian Polytechnic and Skills Institute. The Holmesglen and NMIT polytechnics, however, are built solely on the higher education programs these institutes have been offering since the mid-2000s.
The development and delivery of degrees by a TAFE is not new either.
About a decade ago, the Victorian government granted its TAFE institutes the right to offer degree programs. Other states followed and now more than 80 degree programs are offered by TAFEs.
Five of the Victorian TAFEs( Box Hill, Chisholm, Holmesglen, NMIT and William Angliss, the“ group of five”) are now refining the model, which is well on its way to becoming a new paradigm in higher education, supporting degree programs at the interface of vocational training and higher education.
A regulatory overlay has been designed to safeguard the quality of the degree programs. Degrees had been assessed against national protocols on the basis of their quality, independently of what type of institution offered them. TAFE institutes and private providers were able to seek registration as non-self-accrediting higher education providers, and accreditation for their degree programs. Universities were considered self-accrediting, able to deliver any program and accountable solely to the Australian Universities Quality Agency( AUQA).
The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency( TEQSA), the successor to AUQA, now regulates against the higher education standards, and is verifying whether universities’ self-accredited programs meet the threshold standards. This is particularly relevant as some of the newer universities received their status merely because they were in the right spot when the binary system( CAEs and universities) was abolished.
Altogether, the broadening of degree offerings is a great development. However, while TAFEs and private providers have to demonstrate the quality of their programs through a very rigorous process of accreditation, these courses do not attract government support through Commonwealth Supported Places( CSP) and the Higher Education Contribution Scheme( HECS). Instead, they are full-fee paying. Although students can access FEE-HELP to defer the payment of the fees, that loan incurs a 25 per cent surcharge.
Hence we have an anomaly: some lucky students pay a fraction of the fees as HECS to universities, which obtain the balance through CSPs. This is for programs where the quality is self-assured. In contrast, for new degree programs that have been externally assessed and accredited, students are ineligible for the CSP / HECS scheme and have to pay full fees, plus the 25 per cent surcharge if they opt for a loan.
The polytechnic model appears to redress this. The programs have been designed by the TAFE partner building on its connections with industry and the professions, while the university partner adopts these programs and, after internal scrutiny, re-badges them as university qualifications. This should give those programs access to the CSP / HECS scheme.
There is an irony here. The government regulator, TEQSA, assesses the programs of non-self accrediting providers against the government-legislated standards. Yet it relies on the approval of self-accrediting universities to consider those programs worthy of CSP.
Nevertheless, the polytechnic arrangement confirms that an accredited degree at TAFE is worthy of government support. No longer is the typical TAFE degree student excluded from subsidised tertiary education.
There is a nagging hitch. At a workshop at Holmesglen in late 2012, Gareth Parry( a UK education academic) reported on overseas experience with these arrangements. In essence, they all involve a master, which receives government funds, where the academic board and senior academics reside. The funding that streams to the partner is always at the behest of opaque calculations of cost. So I am looking with interest at the financial developments and intellectual independence of the Holmesglen-University of Canberra and NMIT-La Trobe University alliances.
The most sensible solution, once a degree has been accredited and the institute is registered, is for students to have equitable access to a CSP / HECS place. However, for that, federal and state politicians will have to come to a sensible consensus, one that puts student needs and equity upfront and that supports, rather than penalises, diversity in the tertiary system. n
Meeuwis Boelen is associate professor, manager higher education and research at William Angliss Institute and member of the TEQSA Register of Experts. campusreview. com. au | 37