New era not without disagreement

Where does TAFE sit in the Rudd Government's commitment to VET?

By Linda Simon

On April 17, the Ministerial Council for Vocational and Technical Education (MCVTE) met in Melbourne for the first time since the election of the Rudd Government. The communique distributed following the meeting talks of a new era of collaboration between Commonwealth, state and territory education and training ministers. The communique fails to indicate a significant area of disagreement, that is principles to govern a new funding agreement for vocational education and training (VET) and the issue of extension of the VET training market with fully contestable funding.

NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca took a strong stand in support of TAFE and allocated funding for TAFE. In a paper he took to the meeting, he said: "Maintaining a strong public training organisation has enabled NSW to provide access across the state in critical skills areas at the same time as rapidly increasing enrolments in priority areas such as apprenticeships; and vocational education and training in schools." He ran the line that NSW had achieved the right balance between competition and directly funded public training.

One of the main items for consideration at the MCVTE meeting was a report commissioned by the previous federal government from the Boston Consulting Group, and a presentation was given to the Ministerial meeting. This report has a number of recommendations and chief among them is a recommendation for full contestability of funding for all public VET provision. While the recommendations were not accepted by Ministers, the recommendations and the principles underlying them were to be the subject of further work. This should concern us greatly, as unfortunately some states appear to be happy to adopt this position.

The NSW Minister's paper also states: "The conclusions reached by the Boston Consulting Group, that participation is falling and that increasing competition is needed to lift performance, are not consistent with the experience and evidence from NSW. The outcomes achieved in NSW demonstrate that it is possible to improve efficiency, boost participation and increase flexibility using our current policy."

The position of the Rudd Government on this matter appears confused. Letters have been sent to Government Members of Parliament both in NSW and other states/territories, asking if increased contestable funding is their policy position. To date there has not been a reply from any MP who has said it is. Yet, a letter from the Federal Education and Training Minister's chief of staff on April 11 states: "TAFE currently provides the major share of training in Australia and will continue to do under this significant investment in training. [This refers to their Productivity Places Program which provides for 450,000 additional training places over the next four years.] The Government supports TAFE but does not support a guaranteed allocation of places to TAFE institutes."

In a further letter on April 22, Federal Minister Julia Gillard said she was responding to me on behalf of all NSW members of the federal parliament. She said: "Through the Skilling Australia for the Future policy, the Australian Government is committed to the reform of the Australian vocational education and training system to ensure that it is better able to respond to the needs of industry and the economy. Public providers are, and will remain, the mainstay of the system."

I think that I would remain more convinced of the Rudd Government's commitment to TAFE if the Federal Minister had found herself able to actually use the word TAFE for a start.

The Australian Education Union's campaign will continue. If you have not already visited or written to your Federal Member of Parliament on this issue, you should do so now. TAFE TA will send out to Federation Representatives a further suggested letter that you could use. Given the lobbying that we have undertaken over a number of years now, I would be surprised if more Federal Government MPs did not agree with the NSW Minister than the Federal Minister when it comes to supporting TAFE.

Linda Simon is TAFE TA Secretary.

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Last Modified: 08 May 2008