TAFE SA

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:02): I will try a very narrow question this time, minister.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PISONI: This is for the Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education and, as I say, it is a narrow question, not a broad question like the last one. Can the minister—

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Point of order, he is also not entitled to give commentary on his questions as he goes along.

The SPEAKER: Get on with your question, member for Unley. You said it was for the Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education.

Mr PISONI: Thank you very much for your protection, Madam Speaker. Can the minister advise by how much the course fees for the TAFE certificate I in construction have increased since students enrolled for next year were first advised that the course fees would be $750?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (15:03): The TAFE fees that are charged to school students is a very complicated area.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: I am sorry if that is somehow a controversial statement—I would have thought it would be fairly obvious. The fact is that when a student enrols at a school that school gets funding from Treasury and Finance for every student who enrols in that school. TAFE is not funded in that way. TAFE gets a certain amount of money from government for training and has to allocate that funding accordingly. So, in various areas TAFE does things on a fee-for-service basis, including to schools.

Training that is provided to school students varies in terms of how much the fee is that is charged to the particular school. When TAFE is providing VET training to a student who is enrolled in a school, overwhelmingly the case is that the fees are able to be kept very low because a class may be 80 per cent full and TAFE will fill that class up with school students so that the charge back to the school can be kept to an absolute minimum.

Sometimes, however, TAFE will have to create a class to cater for school students who are wanting to undertake VET training, and so, in those cases, the charge can be quite high. That charge is not a charge to the student, it is a charge to the school. As I said, in general that is not the full cost of the course; it is kept to a minimum because the students are only filling up a class which is already in existence—a class is not having to be created. Nonetheless, a charge is passed onto the school.

For most schools, the school covers the overwhelming majority of that charge, and they cover that out of the appropriation which they are given by the Department of Treasury and Finance by virtue of that student being enrolled in the school. The charge is passed onto the school and the school then covers it, or at least covers the overwhelming majority of it. Sometimes the school will pass some of that cost onto the parents of the child.

This is an issue which I have been concerned about, because, of course, I want students who are enrolled in school to undertake vocational education and training, particularly in TAFE. So, as part of our Skills for All reforms, which I have not received a single question on since I released these reforms—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING: You get 10 questions every question time. I am yet to receive a question about the Skills for All reforms.

Mr WILLIAMS: Point of order, Madam Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Order! There is a point of order.

Mr WILLIAMS: I think that the leader of government business raised a point of order a moment ago about the commentary while asking a question. I think that the same should apply to answering a question.

The SPEAKER: I think that the minister has finished answering his question. The member for Bragg.