[Greens-Media] Quarterly report confirms that TAFE enrolment figures have fallen - Pennicuik

[Amanda.Sharp at parliament.vic.gov.au]

Friday 28 June 2013

Quarterly report confirms that TAFE enrolment figures have fallen

Figures release yesterday in the Victorian Training Market Quarterly 
Report show that enrolments in TAFE have fallen by 7%.
 
Greens Education spokesperson, Sue Pennicuik, said today that as expected, 
the massive funding cuts to the TAFE system means that thousands of 
students are no longer able to attend TAFE.

"The $300 million cuts to TAFE budgets by the Baillieu / Napthine 
Governments has resulted in the loss of hundreds of courses and dedicated 
TAFE staff and fee rises in all our public TAFE institutes," Ms Pennicuik 
said. 

"In parliament yesterday, Minister Hall tried to explain the reduction 
away by saying that there is about a 4 per cent increase in training in 
areas where there are 'skills shortages' but this doesn't make up for the 
overall decline in enrolments or massive changes that have occurred in 
TAFE," Ms Pennicuik said. "It is also a disaster that the proportion of 
Vocational Education and Training (VET) now provided by the TAFE has 
fallen to 45%, because only the public TAFE Institutes are required to 
provide a range of ancillary and student services that the private 
trainers are not. 

"It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the causes of the 
situation facing the TAFE sector is a combination of bad decisions by the 
current Coalition government and the former Labor government," Ms 
Pennicuik said. 

"The former Labor government introduced the 'market contestability' model, 
which saw an explosion in private providers, some of which were exposed as 
dodgy and provided 'tick and flick' training, leaving students in the 
lurch and causing a blow out in the over-all training budget. This 
government reacted to the costs blow out in the private sector by pulling 
$300 million out of the public TAFE sector, which led to the loss of 
course, TAFE staff and student enrolments.

"This disastrous VET experiment by both governments over the last five 
years is clearly a failure and is letting down our students and the 
Victorian community. It should be abandoned in favour of a return to a 
properly funded and resource public TAFE system as the core provider of 
VET in Victoria," Ms Pennicuik said.

Ms Pennicuik presented Higher Education and Skills Minister, Peter Hall, 
with several hundred postcards from TAFE students asking him to reverse 
the funding cuts to TAFE.

For further comment: Sue Pennicuik – 0409 055 875



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Parliament of Victoria                                                                                                                    . 
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