Vet & tAfe
campusreview.com.au
First step:
admit the
problem
The Victorian Government
began the redemption of
its VET sector in earnest by
acknowledging the disastrous
policy that left things in disarray.
By John Mitchell
W
ith politics, they say if you wait long enough you will
always see the pendulum swing back. This popular
saying didn’t seem to have any chance of coming true
with regard to VET policymaking 2011–14, when the proponents of
a fully contestable market for the sector were in the ascendancy,
particularly in the Victorian Coalition government and its
bureaucracy.
During that period, the Victorian government led the way in
Australia in gladly accepting the financial incentives the Gillard
Labor Government introduced to make more VET funding
contestable, quickly shifting substantial funding to private providers
and progressively derailing the longstanding TAFE institutes. In
2011–12, this column labelled it the Victorian experiment and
in numerous articles over 12 months from October 2011, the
Victorian policymaking was critiqued via interviews with academics,
educational experts, industry leaders, quality private providers and
government ministers from outside Victoria.
Ignoring all such critiques, the Baillieu/Napthine Victorian
government doggedly persisted with its ideological aim to
ultimately privatise TAFE, regardless of public criticism and the
scandals that kept appearing in the media, including the blow-out
of $400 million in the budget by 2011 and the laughable oversupply
of VET graduates with a Certificate IV in fitness.
One of those many articles in Campus Review, in January 2012,
opened with this colourful comment from a New South Wales
academic:
“The Victorian government experimentation with VET funding
is starting to unravel, with the latest revelation that one of its
training providers increased its recognition of prior learning
enrolments from 1 to 134 in one year. ‘Blind Freddy could have
seen coming such perverted results,’ says Dr Phillip Toner.”
24
As Toner predicted, many bigger controversies arose over the next
few years, including the spectacular collapse of Vocation Ltd and
its mainly Victorian operations BAWM and Aspin. The Australian
Financial Review (1/11/2014) reported that, “Between 2011 and
2013 [Vocation Ltd] increased its Victorian government funding
exponentially from $2.4 million to $110 million, under the watchful
eye of [a] senior [Victorian] education bureaucrat.”
In late 2011 and early 2012, CR dared to question the policy of
contestable markets, drawing the wrath of then-Victorian higher
education and skills minister Peter Hall, who twice wrote to CR
with rebuttals of points made in this column. First, Hall wrote in
December 2011:
“John Mitchell’s less-than-subtle criticism of Victoria’s
training reforms (‘TAFE is central to skilling Australia’)
supported with comments from [the federal minister for
skills, Senator Chris Evans] and NSW minister Adrian Piccoli,
warrants a response. Far from ‘destroying’ TAFEs, in Victoria
we are overseeing a well-managed approach to VET delivery,
introducing market reform that in no way equates to an
‘overreach’ of a competitive agenda.”
Then, on March 19, 2012, he wrote to CR in the same
self-congratulatory mode:
“The Victorian reforms to the training system have delivered
significant benefits: increased participation in training; record
levels of government investment in the skills sector; and
strong growth in training in areas of industry need.”
Weeks later, Hall appeared to back down publicly from an initial
solidarity with TAFE leadership. First, he penned a letter to TAFE
institute directors on April 30, saying “rest and sleep [had been] very
difficult” for him as he “anguished” over the latest budget decisions.
He wrote that he understood their “emotions of shock, incredulity,
disbelief and anger” in reaction to the latest unexpected cuts to
TAFE, then issued a new letter, on May 2, in which there was a
noticeable shift in tone. The implicit new message was that Hall
would have to toe the line regarding the government’s funding plans.
“I believe these changes will make Victorian TAFE the strongest
public vocational system in the country, focused on promoting and
supporting skills that will produce new jobs and increase productivity