TAFE fee action to continue in 2008

The current stopwork action by TAFE teachers is being put on hold as the TAFE year is coming to a close and students will be involved in assessments and exams.

Maree O'Halloran, Federation President, said:

"TAFE teachers are supporting their students through their actions to put a stop to TAFE fee increases and have no intention of jeopardising their studies at this time of year.

We are continuing to seek a meeting with the Minister for Education and Training, John Della Bosca. The Minister promised the Federation information about the $50 proposed fee for benefit holders; the application of a fee reduction or a rebate for vocational courses equivalent to the HSC and how TAFE advertises its fee exemptions. To date, the Federation has not received any of this information.

A group of TAFE students also wish to put their case to the Minister but, despite our request for such a meeting a number of weeks ago, nothing has happened. We are extremely disappointed at the government's failure to discuss these issues openly with us.

TAFE teachers are very angry at the 9% fee increase proposal for 2008, as has been demonstrated by the stopwork action. Teachers in many colleges across the state have stopped work, including Kingswood, Bega, Ulladulla, Moruya, Belmont, Wyong, Newcastle, Griffith, Wollongong, Nowra, Cooma, Muswellbrook and Ultimo. Consistently, the message is that this fee increase will affect some of those most disadvantaged in our community and will work against stated government objectives of increasing the skills levels in this state.

The Federation will continue to attempt to negotiate with the state government on this matter but if we cannot get changes to the proposed fee increases to prevent TAFE students bearing the burden of governments inadequately funding TAFE, then we will return to industrial action at enrolment time next year."

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Last Modified: 16 Nov 2007