campusreview. com. au
VET & TAFE
There were some simple, key things that were stopping these young people getting the skills and training they needed to find work. What we’ ve done is put a report together to outline that and give some advice about how to address those issues.
Did you find that a high proportion of individuals come up against these barriers? Those barriers were across the board for most young people but particularly people from disadvantaged backgrounds, because the additional barriers mean they won’ t access the training and education. Across Australia, we’ re finding that many young people comment on this.
The report states that there are some policy issues that can create these problems for young people. Can you outline those as well as any other reasons for these inadequacies? The government has really tried to increase and support VET across Australia. In NSW, the government created targeted scholarships. But the scholarships are difficult to find out about, and it’ s hard to navigate that system. There’ s a huge amount of red tape and complex criteria you have to pass to access those scholarships.
The government says,“ Yes, we’ re going to create more spaces for young people from disadvantage backgrounds, and we’ re going to give scholarships to try and address some of the costing issues,” but unless they’ re easy to access, they aren’ t that useful.
In NSW, for example, only half of those scholarships were taken up. That’ s just a policy issue. We can do little tweaks and changes on those scholarships to make sure they’ re getting the desired outcomes.
But across the board in other states and territories similar things are happening. We have policy desires for young people, to increase young people’ s access to further education and training, but if we’ re making more barriers, it’ s working against us.
Did you find out what the consequences of these issues are? Is it preventing people from going to TAFE in the first place? Or is it increasing dropout rates from the students? Both of those things. We know that the number of young people accessing VET is not reaching the targets the government desires. We have to answer some of those questions about why they’ re not accessing VET. Many can’ t get through the door in the first place because they don’ t know they can access those things. Others, once they’ re in, don’ t have the supports they require.
What we heard from many young people is that once they started the course, they needed additional supports, but many of those supports had been removed. Some really great targeted programs for Aboriginal students have been removed.
When we’ re looking at online courses and things like that, many young people don’ t feel confident doing it on their own because of literacy and numeracy concerns. That face-to-face support is necessary, but we’ ve seen a withdrawal of those supports over time. Those things are pivotal for young people – especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds – to stay in those places.
What we really want to see is young people not only getting into courses but also completing courses, because that’ s what will get them jobs.
The report focused on NSW, but is this also an issue in other states and territories? Absolutely. I’ m the chair of the peak body for young people and the national peak body, and I’ ve heard this from other states and territories, as well as from the youth peak bodies in those states and territories.
There are many barriers for young people in the VET space across the country.
I understand you’ ve developed a series of recommendations. Can you describe them? This report targets the NSW government because they have specific policies in place at the moment that they’ re questioning, so we wrote recommendations related to that. However, the overall recommendations work for every state and territory.
We recommended that the government address the financial and affordability barriers that young people are facing – the high fees.
Reviewing the eligibility criteria for VET’ s free scholarships is really important so that we get more young people taking up the scholarships and fee-free places available in the VET system.
We also think scholarships or fee-free places should be expanded. For example, in NSW there are 50,000 places. That could be increased because there are many more young people that could use that ability to get into further education and training.
I think we should also be improving access as far as the fee-free HELP system.
Basically TAFE has really high fees that incur more loan costs than even university does.
We want to see access to information and supports increase, making sure young people know that VET places are available. The education department is working with the government and the VET sector to make sure young people are aware of what’ s available to them and have individualised conversations and supports. That could be done through career guidance in school, through a specific program.
We also need to look at how VET is provided in the states and territories, that there is good face-to-face teaching and personalised supports, particularly for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. It’ s also important to monitor what’ s out there. Who’ s providing vocational
There’ s a huge amount of red tape and complex criteria you have to pass to access [ VET ] scholarships.
education and training? Are they doing it right? Are they trying to address the barrier for this particular cohort?
What I’ m concerned about is the forecast of 490,000 new jobs in Australia in the next three years. More than 90 per cent of those jobs will require more than a secondary education. It’ s concerning that we’ re going to have a whole bunch of jobs that young people could possibly fill, but if they don’ t have further education and training, these jobs won’ t be available to them.
Do you think the government will be receptive to this report? In NSW, at least, there’ s been a strong interest from the government, and they’ ve been keen to have conversations with us.
What’ s going to be interesting is the conversation that needs to happen in Australia about VET as a whole. What we’ d like to see is each political party commit to strengthening the VET system and address the barriers facing young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
If we don’ t put the supports in place and address the barriers now, our youth unemployment rate is going to skyrocket. ■
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