TAFE reels under falling funding

Vocational training may not provide much of a springboard for meeting the new higher education targets, with unmet demand rising in government-supported VET.

Unmet demand in the government-funded VET sector rose by over 10 per cent in 2008, as funding rates continued to decline and the number of training places stagnated. The '2008 Annual national report of the Australian VET system', quietly released on the DEEWR website last December, reveals there were over 40,000 unsuccessful applications for post-school VET - up 3700 on the previous year and almost 5000 on the year before - although unmet demand was still lower than 2004, when 45,500 applicants were unsuccessful. The report, which focuses on government-supported VET - any training by TAFEs...