VET
As gloomy as it seems, there are now emerging rays of light. For a start, every other state and territory has publicly eschewed the Victorian model of skills reform. the same footing as the private RTOs. Funding for the public TAFEs was slashed by $ 300 million a year, with none of this nonsense about funding TAFEs to meet any sort of community service obligations( delivering into thin markets, maintaining a relatively comprehensive range of offerings and so on).
The past six months have seen well in excess of 2000 redundancies in Victoria’ s TAFE system, hundreds of courses cut and campus closures.
Meanwhile, ahead of actual skills reform, the NSW and Queensland governments both cut about $ 80 million a year out of their TAFE funding.
Yet, as gloomy as it seems for TAFE, there are now emerging rays of light. For a start, every other state and territory has publicly eschewed the Victorian model of skills reform.
Indeed, a Queensland government taskforce delivered a skills reform strategy that can properly be described as reasonable, if marketisation is your predilection. It recognises( or at least gives a nod to) the fundamental role of the public provider in underpinning the training system( for example, in ensuring provision in“ thin” markets). It suggests transition funding and investment to place TAFEs on a more competitive footing. And it provides something of a transition period( though arguably not enough).
Even in Victoria, there are positives that might be had out of its idiosyncratic process. TAFEs have been forced to review every aspect of their operations, discard marginal offerings, and divest themselves of poorly utilised assets.
The government has apparently considerably tightened up access to public funding, so that, as far as possible, only capable and reputable RTOs( of which there many) get through the gateway. And there is every prospect that the Victorian government, having glimpsed electoral mortality via the extraordinary public backlash to its TAFE cuts, might provide some form of structural adjustment funding to at-risk TAFEs( to facilitate rationalisation and consolidation through, for example, institutional mergers).
While the federal government has toned down its own rhetoric about creating an“ integrated tertiary sector”, marketisation of the VET sector, coupled with higher education reform( or lack of in the case of base funding) is beginning to drive greater integration( admittedly, with large dollops of federal structural adjustment funding).
The University of Canberra and Victoria’ s Holmesglen Institute of TAFE are in the formative stages of a collaboration project. The University of Ballarat has its Menzies Affiliation for joint delivery of TAFE / higher education programs with Victorian regional TAFEs. Queensland’ s Gold Coast Institute of TAFE and NSW’ s North Coast TAFE are hooking up with Southern Cross University. Flinders University and South Australia TAFE are working together. There are undoubtedly many more such collaborative projects in process, including with private RTOs.
These sorts of initiatives are positive for TAFEs and provide them with a contemporary and extraordinarily valuable role in training and education, from foundation studies and technical and trades training through to higher education preparation and higher education itself.
I have no doubt that TAFE is up to the task: it is staffed by people dedicated to education and training, it has still got extraordinary reach, breath and depth. TAFE will emerge from the current skills reform process, somewhat scarred and somewhat leaner, but I hope not diminished. Perhaps they will eventually prosper as institutions of a somewhat different character – say, polytechnics.
That’ s not a bad outcome. ■
Brendan Sheehan, is an analyst, adviser and commentator on tertiary education issues. He is a fellow of the LH Martin Institute at the University of Melbourne.
www. campusreview. com. au Issue 2 2013 | 35