Campus Review Volume 28 - Issue 5 | May 2018 | Seite 4

news
campusreview.com.au
More students on the tools
Rise in TAFE enrolments
across New South Wales.
A
boom in infrastructure projects
is driving enrolment growth
in trade qualifications, with an
increase of at least 10 per cent across
carpentry, plumbing and electrical trades.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and
assistant minister for skills Adam Marshall
recently unveiled the new TAFE NSW
data at the Annandale Infrastructure
Skills Centre.
Figures showed there had been a
19 per cent increase in enrolments for
electricians and an 11 per cent increase
for carpenters and plumbers compared
with the same time last year.
Berejiklian attributed this partly to
recent construction projects such as
NorthConnex, WestConnex and the Sydney
Metro project, which have employed more
than 400 TAFE NSW apprentices in total.
“This government’s record $80 billion
investment in infrastructure over the next
four years has resulted in a construction
boom across the state and a huge demand
for tradies to build our future roads, schools
and hospitals,” Berejiklian said.
“Here at the Annandale Infrastructure
Skills Centre, we can see first-hand
how TAFE NSW is working alongside
Australia’s largest public transport project,
Bigger bite of the pie
Go8 aims to promote more
equitable outcomes for
students from educationally
disadvantaged backgrounds.
2
T
he Group of Eight has just signed a
three-year collaboration agreement
with the Australian Council of Social
Service (ACOSS) to address the issue of how
students live.
Sydney Metro, to get students hands-on
experience.”
Marshall said there had been noticeable
and steady growth in Certificate III trade
enrolments.
“This steady growth in enrolments for
qualifications addressing the state’s skills
needs shows students are voting with
their feet and choosing TAFE NSW as the
provider of choice to launch their careers in
trades,” Marshall said.
“It’s been a year since the NSW
government implemented its One TAFE
NSW model to strengthen and modernise
TAFE NSW, and steady growth in key
trades qualifications show this work is
paying off.”  ■
“We are particularly concerned
about the cost of living during study
and housing costs for students
living away from home,” Go8 chief
executive Vicki Thomson said.
The agreement’s aim is to promote
“more equitable outcomes” for low-SES
and regional and remote students by
sharing research.
The Go8 acknowledged that
its institutions in particular have
much heavy lifting to do in this
respect. Although they hosted
more than 136,600 students from
educationally disadvantaged
backgrounds in 2016, they are among
the lowest hosts of this cohort.
Victorian Go8 members Monash
University and the University of
Melbourne have, on average, the
lowest proportions of low-SES students
of all universities in that state. The same
generally applies across other states
and territories.
Thomson suggested that cost
was the major barrier to people
from low-SES backgrounds
participating in and completing
university.  ■