Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697631012075.pdf (Australia)
The Committee will inquire into and report on the role played by TAFEs in: • the development of skills in the Australian economy There is a sign in our staff room which says “if you can read this, thank a teacher”.

If you live in a house, might I suggest, that the chances are that house was built by a variety of trades people who were trained at TAFE.
It may be very new or it may be quite old, but t is not “jerry” built- to use a very old fashioned term- and it won’t fall down, except in catastrophic circumstances.

This country is filled with examples of the role that TAFE has played and still plays in the development of skills in the Australian economy.

These skills range from an adequate level of Literacy and Numeracy and English Language skills to the IT skills that are so essential to a modern economy.
In small rural communities, TAFE has been the only provider of the essential skills required by today’s farmers from the basic Certificate 1 in Engineering, Operating a Chain Saw, OH&S, tractor driving and basic mechanics, agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and so on.

The cotton industry, where I work, is eternally grateful for the trained pool of workers that have come through the programs offered at the local TAFE.
Until the mid 1990s, such skills as existed in the workplace had been acquired through successfully completing a TAFE course.

That was the only source of post secondary training available in Australia, apart from University.

There was, of course, plenty of informal/workplace training but credentialed training came from attendance at a TAFE course in many areas ranging from business through fashion, accounting, building and cooking.
The number of 457 visas that have been issued would appear to be testimony to the fact that insufficient funding and incentives have been provided to allow TAFE to build on that foundation In every Federal electorate, rural and non rural, I think that the same situation will apply.

The owner of the discount fashion shop in Sydney, that I frequent, is more than happy to tell me that her business success is in no small part responsible for the skills and knowledge that she gained at TAFE.
Inquiry into the role of Technical and Further Education system and its operationSubmission 168 - Supplementary Submission the provision of pathways for Australians to access employment Federally funded programs such as Language, Literacy and Numeracy, now superseded by Skills for Education and Employment, have augmented the work that has been done for many years in the Adult Basic Education(ABE) sections of TAFEs throughout Australia over many, many years.
The emphasis has always been on ensuring that the students gained the requisite skills to transition to or re-enter the workplace.

Many people over the years did not have the educational opportunities that would have allowed them to succeed at any thing other than the most basic of manual work.

That work no longer exists.


I recall a story told by an economist about the coco-cola factory that employed 300 unskilled workers which closed for “re-development” and re-opened with 6 semi-skilled workers who were able to operate “the giant mecano set” with an increased output.

Without the opportunity to go to a TAFE and improve their skills, I would suggest that those displaced workers, very reluctantly, became part of the long term unemployed.
There is a very strong move, and one I support, to encourage people with a disability to try to find employment.

There are many stroke victims of working age who have learned to read and write again through being able to access TAFE ABE classes.

There are many other motivated people with disabilities who access TAFE classes to improve their employability after workplace accidents that have left them with bad backs or other problems.
These are motivated people who have no desire to live on welfare payments and without ABE classes there is very little chance for them to acquire the multiple literacies(Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000).

Multiliteracies Literacy learning and the design of social futures).that today’s world of work requires.

There are people, who for whatever reason suffer from a catastrophic mental breakdown.

These are people who can and do re-build their lives with the help of a range of TAFE courses.
One such person, some 4 years after first coming to TAFE, now has a permanent part time public service job at ¾ level and, I am confident, will go on from there to bigger and better things.
If a worker through no fault of their own finds themselves out of a job and without the skills necessary to get another one, then I would argue that the educational setting most likely to be able to assist that person to obtain the skills they need to get back into the work force is a TAFE college.. Inquiry into the role of Technical and Further Education system and its operationSubmission 168 - Supplementary Submission the provision of pathways for Australians to access University education; There has, for many years, been some form of articulation for a range of Advanced Diploma courses to access a level of advanced standing in some University courses.
Accounting being one of these courses; Engineering is another one.

The combination of both types of education and training has frequently provided a better range of skills and knowledge than the University training on its own.

TAFE courses are more likely to have a larger practical component than the university courses.

In NSW, TAFEs both the Higher School Certificate (HSC) and the Tertiary Preparation Certificate (TPC) have provided students with pathways into University.
In some instances, the students are people who have failed to gain the University entry score that they were wanting and came to TAFE to repeat the HSC.

In other cases, students felt unable to continue at school, but wanted to gain entrance to University and came to TAFE to gain that entry through either the HSC or the TPC.

In some cases very mature people who did not get the chance to complete their schooling have come to TAFE to gain the skills to get into University to satisfy some long held ambition.
More recently, there have been more overt partnerships developed between TAFEs and Universities to enable a clearer form of articulation.

TAFE New England is currently in the process of developing such a partnership with the University of New England in the field of Agriculture.

Ballarat TAFE also has a close relationship, both academically and physically, with the neighbouring University.
I believe that such partnerships will inform the theory and practice of both educational institutions and there should be considerable mutual benefit.
Increasingly there are dual sector qualifications being offered by TAFE in combination with a University Notwithstanding the existence of University Foundation courses, many of which come at minimal cost, for younger students and students who have been outside the education field for a long period of time, it is my belief that TAFE will continue to play an important role in providing the skills, knowledge and confidence for people to gain access to a University education through courses such as TPC.
Inquiry into the role of Technical and Further Education system and its operationSubmission 168 - Supplementary Submission the operation of a competitive training market I find the whole concept of an educational “market” problematic.

Market theory assumes sellers and buyers all possessing equal knowledge.

By definition, I would argue, that in an educational “market”, the sellers have the knowledge and the buyers are frequently stumbling around in the dark.
I would also argue that the sellers are offering a limited range of products which may prove of no use to the buyer in the workplace market.

The concept of competition within the market also seems to be problematic.

One could argue that Woolworths and Coles are competing on a level playing field, but TAFE and AAA Training inc. are not.

TAFE provides a full range of services over and above teaching and training.

These include library, counselling and disability services.
AAA Training inc does not provide these additional services and has been know to shamelessly sent its clients to TAFE to access some of these services such as counselling and library, when a government contract requires it to provide such services.

I would not describe that as genuine competition.

I would argue that, for self evident reasons, AAA Training Inc, will happily offer low cost courses such as Business Administration at Certificate 11 level.
AAA Inc may also be a Job provider and has a captive audience of students clients they can keep happily “busy” thus ensuring they become long term unemployed which earns them the double whammy of the training voucher and the payoff from the Government IF the client gets a job.

Their staff, with or without a year 10 education, all have a TAE qualification.
AAA Training Inc is not going to either want or be able to offer construction related courses, hospitality courses, Engineering courses, Agriculture courses as the infrastructure costs are very high and there are sufficiently easy pickings lower down on the tree.

While NSW hears the Government’s assurances that the mistakes of Victoria will not be repeated, for all the above reasons that is not totally convincing.
Students/clients will of course be fully informed as to where is the best quality training when they get their voucher for the course of their choice, for which they have had no pre- assessment as to their capacity to complete this training.

That is such an invalid assumption that it totally beggars belief.

Finally, “competition” exists in the school sector.

There are no “for profit” competitors in the school sector.
The Board of Studies has a much firmer control over the learning outcomes to be achieved in any school than ASQA which we are fearful will be dismantled to allow for self regulation.

Given the experiences of “clients” of some of the private RTO’s, that is rather akin to allowing Dracula to run the blood bank.
Inquiry into the role of Technical and Further Education system and its operationSubmission 168 - Supplementary Submission Inquiry into the role of Technical and Further Education system and its operationSubmission 168 - Supplementary Submission