Della Bosca condemns Australian Technical Colleges

by Sally Edsall

NSW Education and Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca slammed the Howard Government's attempt to privatise trades education and training, and its attempts to undermine TAFE through Australian Technical Colleges (ATCs).

Speaking at Federation's August Council, he also pointed to the Federal Government's deliberate attempt to introduce mandatory Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) into education.

ATCs are the embodiment of the intersection between privatising education and their aggressive industrial relations agenda.

"We refused to bid for the Commonwealth's Australian Technical Colleges under the requirement that we adopt AWAs," Mr Della Bosca said.

He also slammed the cost of the ATCs: "Costs are up to $53,000 per student in the Illawarra. The Commonwealth is prepared to waste enormous sums of taxpayers' money to gain progressive control of the school and training systems."

More than $550 million has been allocated to establish 28 ATCs, which are failing to meet enrolment targets. According to the Department of Education Science and Training, at the end of March 2007, the Illawarra college had 35 enrolments, from a target of 50. Its funding is $19.6 million. The Sun-Herald (July) 15 reported that just 20 of the students had found apprenticeships. Mr Della Bosca called the colleges a "fiscal catastrophe, in keeping with the Howard Government's drive to privatise education".

Meanwhile, TAFE colleges have been starved of funds, despite increased enrolments. The National Centre for Vocational Educational Research has reported that since 1997 real expenditure per hour of TAFE curriculum has decreased by 24 per cent.

In July, the Australian National Audit Office said that the initial tender applications for ATCs were weak and inadequate, and insufficient attention had been paid to state and territory governments in the process.

In Melbourne, the executive manager of the Eastern Melbourne ATC, Terry Harrison resigned in early August. The college has enrolled only 68 students this year, falling well short of its target of 180. The Age newspaper reported that the Federal Government delayed signing the college's funding agreement until December 2005, a month before it opened.

While at Council, Mr Della Bosca also criticised the Howard Government as being "prepared to waste enormous sums of taxpayers' money to gain progressive control of the school and training systems".

"At the end, the Commonwealth has an ideological agenda for the reconstruction of the form and content of public schooling. It seeks to use bribes to establish direct links with individual government schools, while it uses federal funding levers to reshape the intellectual content and values of public schools."

Sally Edsall is a Research Officer.

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Last Modified: 30 Aug 2007