Standing Committee on Employment, Education
and Workplace Relations
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Submission 84
TAFE SA
Regency Institute
Maureen Morton
The Appropriate Roles of Institutes of Technical and Further Education
The roles of TAFE can be usefully looked at in four specific ways,
- the role of providing an access into a skills training Programme for
young people upon leaving school,
- providing training and retraining for industry,
- retraining for people retrenched and/ or unemployed for other reasons.
- a second chance education.
1. Providing access to employment for young people is a critical role
for TAFE Institutes. Here, not withstanding that more secondary schools
are undertaking courses in vocational education, secondary schools are
geared to a culture of providing well rounded educated, literate and numerate
young people. Schools rarely employ skilled tradespeople to teach young
people. TAFE Institutes are geared to provide skill specific training
to standards increasingly set internationally in order to teach people
how to understand the concepts of working to a price and a time standard
of quality.
2. The greatest emphasis for TAFE Institutes is driven by the Federal
Government Reform agenda and The Australian National Training Authority,
i.e. to become ever closer to industry. TAFE staff increasingly teach
customised courses, ,frequently on site and at times specific to the industry
served. This drive to become increasingly closer to industry is critical
for TAFE as well as for industry. TAFE and industry increasingly understand
the international imperatives of a globally competitive economy. This
international agenda is driving the need for Australia to develop a highly
skilled, very adaptable and resourceful workforce in order for Australians
to maintain high standards of living. The vast majority of individual
students attending TAFE courses do so in the expectation of getting a
job as an outcome of a course, or of getting a better job as a consequence
of gaining skills or upgrading their position because of better qualifications.
The overall effect of TAFE closeness to industry means that disadvantaged
students, unemployed students etc, choose to study with TAFE because of
this interaction. Close liaison with industry that means that courses
taught are industrially relevant with skills immediately applicable on
the job.
3. With increasing numbers of people becoming retrenched or unemployed
due to the rapid changes in technology, downsizing of the workforce and
more and more people employed on fixed term contracts, TAFE as an avenue
for continual reskilling of the workforce becomes ever more critical to
the population as a whole.
The ability to continually build upon a skills base in order to maintain
one's employability will become more of a necessity than a luxury as people
in the workforce come to understand the concept. In 1997 30% of the South
Australian workforce are employed on contracts or in several part-time
positions as listed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
It is also necessary for the Government to support the provision of a
publicly funded Organisation such as TAFE in order to provide stability
as a national training provider at a time of increasing multiplicity of
training providers. It is worth making the point that the 75% of the population
that do not attend Universities now have a bewildering plethora of training
providers to choose from in an increasingly complex and bureaucratic training
market.
Rodney Attwood, member of the Regency Institute council and a senior
Engineer for the Kinhill Group stated that "TAFE as the national
training provider needs to be the powerhouse of training and retraining
for industry. TAFE staff must be able to anticipate and continuously upgrade
skill levels in order to work with industry to drive the retraining agenda."
4. The role of TAFE as a second chance education and training Organisation
for many people is not a proposition to be dismissed lightly. In this
modern world too many people are failing at school due to the circumstances
in which they find themselves. Transient families, breakdown of families,
or even violent and abusive families, refugees and migrants coming in
to Australia from overseas, all require assistance to develop the skills
that will enable them to take a place in an increasingly complex society.
TAFE has an excellent reputation in assisting people to pick up on literacy
and numeracy skills and on social interaction skills built into these
courses, TAFE offers the facilities for people to move easily through
courses, coming in at the very basic levels of a programme and proceeding
through to a skills programme always with the back up support to successfully
compete and achieve in the chosen area. TAFE also has a long history of
success in assisting people to move seamlessly through all levels of education
into the workforce.
TAFE is a unique repository of intellectual skills that enable new and
fledgling industries to tap into support and training in their early years
that commonly lead into larger industries and profitable areas of the
economy for a State or for Australia.
In South Australia examples of this are in the area of viticulture and
the rapid growth of the wine industry, in aquaculture and increasingly
in the areas of food processing and food technology, all of which have
led to significant growth in exports. This link between TAFE and industry
enables TAFE to respond at speed to a new or developing industry before
actual demand can be gauged in order for training hours to be set.
This skilled staffing base is also assisting in the rapid expansion of
overseas students attending TAFE courses in Australia and increasing numbers
of Managers from overseas attending customised courses in South Australia.
TAFE Institutes play a vital role in the Australian educational arena.
Their range of skills focussed, industry related courses, coupled with
an ability to continually, rapidly change curricula to meet emerging demands
has enabled many industries to grow and flourish.
The interaction between growing numbers of TAFE lecturers teaching in
various training consultancies overseas and the growing numbers of overseas
students studying here is giving South Australia an increasing body of
international market intelligence which is markedly assisting local companies
to increase their exporting Opportunities. Value adding through training.
The Regency Institute has developed "The Gourmets Choice" a
network of South Australian food companies who wish to export their goods.
The Institute is assisting these companies to sell their specialised
food products to the increasing numbers of Hotels in China and Malaysia
through the International College of Hotel management courses.
The number of TAFE campuses ensure that a vocational skills course is
reasonably within reach Of most of the Population, including people in
remote and isolated locations.
The pride that TAFE lecturers and graduates of TAFE display in the gaining
of high level skills, the understanding of the need for continuous innovation
and improvement, the rapid growth in understanding of the need for quality
systems demonstrate that the TAFE Organisation is a national asset that
should be encouraged to grow and flourish in order to ensure the continual
provision of a highly skilled workforce.
The Extent to which these roles should overlap with Universities
The role of universities in society has been debated for over a thousand
years. Their Primary Purpose would appear to be for research and the development
of intellectual property,.their teaching based on research.
There is circumstantial evidence to support the view that TAFE courses
once absorbed into a University culture will disappear as students opt
for the perceived greater status of university courses. This will lead
to the acceleration of skills shortages as is currently being experienced.
One such example is the amalgamation of Wellington Polytechnic into a
local University. The senior staff of the polytechnic, responsible for
vocational areas have been given two years to upgrade the qualification
levels of awards offered. eg current trade cookery area to upgrade to
at least a Diploma or phase the programme out. This is due to the funding
base and the academic profile of the university.
While it may be argued that such events may not occur in Australia, if
the preplanning is not appropriately carried out, these situations will
occur. The community and industry perceptions are very strong in terms
of their expectations of the roles of universities and TAFE. An amalgamation
between these sectors would certainly impact on the effectiveness of either
to maintain their key focus.
The question could more profitably be turned around to ask how far Universities
should be allowed to overlap into what has been traditionally TAFE territory.
The expansion of the University sector has been at the expense of TAFE
and is giving rise to a real shortage of skilled tradespeople, skilled
technicians and skilled support staff that will enable Australia to maintain
and improve it's international competitiveness.
The Universities with their concern for increased enrolments have lowered
their entrance standards to embrace a wider group of students and have
under valued the role of skills taught in the TAFE sector to the disadvantage
of the Australian economy and workforce as a whole.
There is a need and indeed an award based opportunity for TAFE to conduct
three year Bachelor Degree courses with an emphasis on the application
of technology and the development of application technology rather than
the principles of technology so well researched and taught by Universities.
The courses developed and conducted by TAFE Institutions should be articulated
through to the University sector with the facility to continue to recognise
completed studies at the same level as the original award, being recognised
as endorsements to the original qualification, thus maintaining the currency
and relevance of the qualification.
The most recent report by Philip Curran "Workskills and the Competitiveness
of Nations " makes the point that although in terms of world competitiveness
Australia ranks equally amongst the top countries internationally with
numbers of people with University qualifications, it is a long way behind
when it comes to numbers of people with vocational skills qualifications.
At a time when Australia already has more doctors dentists and lawyers
than it can usefully employ, it. is experiencing a shortage of skilled
tradespeople in the areas of tool making, metal fabrication, robotics
etc and has already commenced recruitment from overseas.
In conclusion, the Council of Regency Institute recommends that there
is a very real, necessary, national role for Institutes of TAFE. That
the government should contain the growth of Universities at this time
through the diversion of funds to the TAFE sector and look for ways to
encourage more young people especially to consider skills areas for employment.
Regency Institute Council believes that the government will need to underpin
this drive to encourage more young people into new and emerging skills
areas by a strategic campaign of advertising these areas as desirable
areas of growth for the future of Australia's economy.
Members of the Regency Institute Council would be very
pleased to meet with the committee to discuss any aspects of this paper
that may need further elucidation.
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