TAFE campaigners say a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the sector has diagnosed the symptoms, not the illness.
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A report into the findings of the Upper House inquiry, released on Tuesday, lists 25 recommendations.
Making TAFE more accessible to students through the removal of the “one size fits all” disability loading, providing a breakdown of direct funding and abolishing the problem-plagued computerised student administration system, are among the suggestions.
“Teachers will be really happy about getting rid of the software system that has been an absolute nightmare for them during this year,” NSW Teachers Federation TAFE organiser Rob Long said. Mr Long said many problems identified by the community, teachers and students were heard by the committee, however it was evidence Smart and Skilled reforms weren’t working.
“We’ll continue to pursue that TAFE should not be open to contestable funding, it should be guaranteed funding to ensure that our students get the skills they need to get the jobs they need,” he said.
Only rural and regional TAFE colleges, in areas deemed “thin markets” would be protected from unlimited competition.
Mr Long said it wasn’t clear if Wollongong would be listed as regional.
The South Coast Labour Council was among the contributors to the inquiry.
SCLC secretary Arthur Rorris said, at face value, the recommendations were a “missed opportunity to identify and rectify the key problems” facing the system.
“What they appear to have done is diagnosed the symptoms rather than the cause or the illness,” Mr Rorris said.
“They have asked the right questions ... but have failed to identify what everyone else can see and that is the cancer eating away at our training system is contestability itself, it’s privatisation.
“It’s what happens when you put profits of corporations ahead of the training needs of Australian people.”
Greens NSW MP John Kaye described the inquiry recommendations as a band-aid solution that “will not not provide a secure future for the public system in the long run”.
"Unless the Baird government acts now to protect TAFE from unlimited competition with profit-focused private providers, it faces a limited future,” Dr Kaye said.
NSW Minister for Skills John Barilaro welcomed the committee’s finding that “a contestable skills and training sector would benefit students, industry and the economy”.
“It is important to get the vocational education and training policy settings right so we leave a lasting legacy of skilled workers for the future,” Mr Barilaro said.
A government response is due by June 15.