NewsVET & TAFE
Frankenstein devours its creators
An eminent economist believes the Victorian training policy mess is an example of a text book model banging up against the real world.
Around Australia, treasury officials and policy advisers are sitting on review committees reconstructing the VET sector. Unfortunately, their model is based on a simplistic understanding of the sector, says OECD consultant Dr Phillip Toner.
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Programs, staff and facilities to offer vocational programs in Victoria have been cut extensively. The Government believes that if these cuts have gone too far enrolments may be recovered by simply increasing Government subsidies. But for many programs increasing capacity requires considerable investment and confidence in the program’s viability in the medium term, neither of which are available under the current policy.
And one wonders how many other States and Territories in Australia will repeat the Victorian model even if some what watered down.
The politician who will stand up and state that the long held belief that technical education should be free or heavily subdised is no longer viable and will have to be purchased at the true cost of delivery, administration, resources and buildings plus profit for the share holders will get my vote.
Yes! Yes! Yes! You have hit the nail on the head. When will someone stand up and denounce this as a failed experiment before the damage that is being done becomes irreparable. What the government fails to realise is that manipulating funding will not be in a position to deliver responsive training. The infrastructure will be gone and more importantly the teaching expertise lost. The TAFE system in Victoria is on a precipice with bureaucrats and politicians pushing this flawed doctrine as they watch, blissfully ignorant of the long term implications.
Great article – for the first time to date, finally sums up the reality of this debacle! Ultimately this leads to accountability being put where it belongs.