Loans for TAFE students rejected

The NSW Teachers Federation is opposed to the introduction of ‘income contingent loans’ for vocational students. These were announced by the Prime Minister on Wednesday.  Rather than viewing ‘loans’ as a benefit for TAFE students in NSW, Federation is concerned that students will be placed in debt. Loans schemes for TAFE students are a tax on students’ future earnings.

Federation President, Maurie Mulheron has called on NSW Minister for Education, Mr Adrian Piccoli, to ensure that TAFE remains accessible to everyone in NSW, and to reject the proposals at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting.

Maurie Mulheron said:

“TAFE students already experience financial disadvantage because of the associated living costs and loss of income related to full time study.  VET students do not have the earning capacity after graduation of university graduates. People in NSW who want to improve their education and job prospects should be able to do so without incurring overwhelming debt.

“Raising the Youth Allowance, Austudy and apprentice wages would go a long way towards alleviating student poverty, and allow more people to stay in vocational education.”

Maxine Sharkey, Relieving Assistant General Secretary (Post Schools), said:

“It is disturbing that the Prime Minister cited the Victorian Vocational Education sector to illustrate the Federal Government’s intended reforms. In Victoria these “reforms” have had a devastating impact on TAFE institutes, resulting in job losses for TAFE teachers. There has been an explosion of profit making and unregulated private registered training organisations offering five day Diploma courses.

“TAFE students in Victoria get one bite of the cherry through the voucher or ‘entitlement’ system and then have to pay huge fees.  Instead of increasing vocational education in skill shortage areas and lifting productivity  these ‘reforms’ have led to cherry picking of cheap courses by private providers leaving TAFE with the high cost, low volume vocational education required by our economy.”

The continuing under-funding of TAFE by successive governments driven by the ideology of privatisation is unsatisfactory. Despite the underfunding, the 60 TAFE Institutes across Australia deliver 85 per cent of government funded training. Now the Federal Government is offering a “bribe” of $1.75 billion over five years if States sign up to privatisation.