Illawarra TAFE fashion design student Pania Witoko is upset that the diploma course she planned to do next year has been canned, while fellow student Warrick Poole is worried that cuts to TAFE funding will affect the disability services he so relies on.
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These were just two of the students who voiced their concerns at a midday rally at Wollongong TAFE as part of National TAFE Day yesterday.
NSW Teachers Federation relieving TAFE organiser Astrid O'Neill said the national day of action had been called to highlight the critical role the institution plays in rural, regional and metropolitan communities across Australia.
She said TAFE institutions around Australia were struggling under the impact of state budget cuts. In NSW, courses and campuses were in danger, with the O'Farrell government planning to cut $80 million, and 800 jobs, from TAFE NSW over the next four years.
"This national day of action is part of an ongoing campaign to insist that TAFE remains the main publicly funded provider in Australia of vocational education," she said.
"In NSW the government's Smart and Skilled reforms [to be introduced mid-2014] will force TAFE to compete with private providers in tendering for the money which used to come to TAFE.
"The problem is TAFE invariably has higher costs because our teachers are more highly qualified and we provide better students' resources, such as libraries and services for students with disabilities or from non-English-speaking-backgrounds. So if it's going to be based on cost, we are not going to be on an even playing ground."
Ms O'Neill said that in other states, such as Victoria where similar reforms had been introduced, "shonky private providers" had sprung up offering "gifts" or shorter courses that had been hard for young students to resist.
"But they are not getting quality training," she said.
Ms Witoko, of Barrack Heights, is doing a Certificate IV in applied fashion and technology at West Wollongong TAFE and has just discovered the diploma course has been canned in 2014.
"Certificate IV gives you the basic skills in design and pattern making but the diploma really takes it up a notch and allows you to design a whole collection," she said.
"Now if I want to do the diploma I'll have to travel to Sydney or Canberra."
Towradgi resident Mr Poole suffers from bipolar and is concerned that the cuts might reduce the disability services on offer.
"I'm doing the tertiary preparation certificate and have received a lot of support from the disability unit. Instead of sitting at home, TAFE allows me to go out and mix in with people and use the skills that I have and learn new ones."
TAFE also gave Wollongong MP Noreen Hay the skills, and confidence, to get into the workforce as a young mother with four children.
"TAFE quite often provides a fallback position for many students who may not have performed as well as they would have liked at high school, or for mature aged students who want to take on further studies."