VET & TAFE campusreview. com. au
Substance trumps spin
Victoria led VET down the path to dysfunction but it is now providing ideas for grown-up solutions while the country’ s leaders ramble on.
By John Mitchell
Two totally different future approaches to redesigning the VET sector were tabled in the month of July and the differences between them could not be starker. One approach was substantial and could rescue the sector, the other sounded like spin and could drive the sector towards further disarray.
The first approach was contained within the VET Funding Review Issues Paper commissioned by the Victorian minister for training and skills, Steve Herbert, and prepared by Bruce Mackenzie and Neil Coulson following their extensive consultations across the state. The issues paper described 27 changes proposed for the VET sector in Victoria, including three changes to make TAFE more sustainable, four to better support jobs and industry, five to support training for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, six for how funds are allocated to providers and nine to ensure students are better protected and supported. Herbert is to be congratulated for commissioning this pivotal project.
The second approach was summarised in one paragraph within a three-page document called“ Australian Leaders’ Retreat Communiqué”, based on a one-day meeting between the prime minister and state premiers in Sydney on July 22. The one paragraph identified a single problem for the VET sector – namely, that VET graduates do not always find jobs or obtain jobs in the field where they trained. The paragraph’ s solution: for states to hand over VET to the federal government, provided states could retain control over the TAFE institutes they have run down in recent years.
The document was written in that drumbeating style so common in these days when marketing and political staffers, as the authors or weavers of communiqués, have displaced dispassionate public servants. Here is a taste of the hyperbole:
“ All leaders agreed that the federation reform process provided a rare opportunity to tackle these issues and that, if we didn’ t, Australians would face the risk of declining services in the future.“ Now is the time for leadership.“ Now is the time for an honest and candid conversation with the Australian people about these issues.
“ Now is the time to bring forward a plan for Australia’ s future, with party politics put aside, which examines the roles and responsibilities of the different levels of government.
“ The leaders had an ambitious discussion about ways in which the Commonwealth and state governments can co-operate more effectively to make major improvements in the delivery of services to all Australians.
“ The Leaders unanimously agreed to focus reform on health, education, infrastructure and housing.”
Such babble demeans all of us. If the premiers and prime minister had read the Victorian issues paper on the causes of and many fixes needed to that state’ s desperate VET sector, they could have said something more like:
All leaders agreed that the federation reform process since 2009 has contributed greatly to the current mess. Now is the time for humility. Now is the time for an honest and candid explanation to the Australian people about how our combined policies have damaged VET.
Now is the time to bring forward a credible plan for Australia’ s VET future, with party politics put aside.
Such honesty is highly unlikely, however, while government communiqués on VET are written like announcements of blockbuster movies on television. Following
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