Funding slashed from TAFE fine arts courses should be reinstated, a state government taskforce has urged.
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The recommendation follows the O'Farrell government's decision last year to cut $800 million, including 800 jobs from TAFE, as part of a $1.7 billion cut to the education budget over four years.
This month the Napthine government in Victoria decided to restore $200 million in TAFE funding after estimated cuts of $300 million under the Baillieu government.
The NSW government commissioned the Creative Industries Taskforce to help rebuild the economy and to ''drive the growth of the creative industries over the next 10 years''.
The taskforce's draft plan recommends the government should reinstate funding it withdrew for TAFE fine arts courses. The report is open for public consultation until next month. The report calls on the government to ''recognise the importance of … a range of alternative, affordable and practical avenues to education and training that underpin NSW creative industries''.
NSW Greens MP and education spokesman John Kaye said the recommendation came as TAFE colleges were being forced to shed fine arts teachers. ''It's obvious that starving fine arts courses will undermine the future of all of the creative arts industries and destroy thousands of jobs,'' Dr Kaye said.
''The O'Farrell government has so far ignored the pleas of teachers and students to save fine arts at TAFE. Now they are under pressure from the creative industries that rely on an educated and trained workforce.''
A spokesman for Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said that from this year fine arts courses in ceramics, sculpture and visual arts were being offered only on a fee-for-service basis in TAFE. He said the government would continue to subsidise courses such as design, digital media, photography, museum practice, arts administration and Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander cultural arts because they were a higher priority.
smh.com.au
