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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-11-24 Daily Xml
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TAFE

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:29): I move:

That this house calls on the state government to ensure that TAFE is not undermined by the introduction of a policy of full contestability for VET funding, nor by the South Australian government's Skills for All policy.

Madam Speaker, I note your long-standing association with TAFE, going back quite a while. I remember meeting you in Whyalla—I think it was at the TAFE campus—many years ago. I am passionate about TAFE, and I am sure that you are, Madam Speaker.

I am not saying that the government is going to do the wrong thing; I am just sending up the flag, I guess, to indicate to the government to make sure that, in introducing this policy of full contestability and the Skills for All policy, it does not fall into the trap that occurred in Victoria, which has resulted in the TAFE sector being basically undermined, undervalued and considerably weakened.

About two weeks ago, the member for Ashford, the Hon. Robert Brokenshire MLC and I attended an AEU briefing on TAFE, delivered by Ms Pat Forward from the federal branch of the AEU, on what has happened in Victoria as a result of the introduction of contestability. Pat Forward made a lot of concerning comments about what had happened in Victoria, where nearly all of those equivalent TAFE institutions are now in deficit; they have serious financial problems. One of the great concerns was that the quality of programs had suffered. At this meeting, she said that you can get a diploma in Victoria in five days from some of the private providers that have sprung up. She went into great detail about what has happened over there.

Anyone who knows anything about training or education would know that a five-day diploma is basically worthless; it is a nonsense. That is no doubt an extreme situation. I think TAFE has been one of South Australia's best kept secrets for a long time, and I hope that all members here familiarise themselves with their local TAFE so that they can be aware of what TAFE contributes.

There have been substantial cutbacks to TAFE here over the last decade or so. At Regency, we used to have a very large engineering section. That has been basically decimated. Other parts of TAFE have suffered significant funding cuts. I hope that will change. I heard the Chair of the Public Works Committee talking about the sustainability education centre at Tonsley Park. I hope we will see increased funding for skills training, not only at the secondary school level but certainly at the TAFE level as well.

I am not against the private sector; it has to make a profit, but, if it takes on some of the VET training, it will cream off the profitable sections. We also have other requirements which may not be as profitable in the short term, but we still need the skills that are produced in those other areas. However, if you just throw the VET sector open completely, you will end up with some of the private operators creaming off some of the offerings. It is a lot cheaper to put 30 students in a classroom with a computer than it is to teach or develop skills in plumbing or heavy engineering.

TAFE has had a long-standing record of commitment to the community through community programs, including helping not just mature age women but others to access a stepping stone to further study and skills development. I do not want to see that role diminished. It is not just women who have missed out on opportunities because they have been raising children, and so on; there are a lot of men in the community, too, who need to change direction in terms of their career, who may be trapped at the moment with a mortgage and a family to support as well. What we need is the maximum opportunity for people to upgrade their skills, whether they be men, women, young people, mature age or whatever.

I read a lot of newspapers, which probably explains something, but, in Victoria, they have just been recruiting police for their public transport system and I noticed one of the recruits was aged 57. Now, that was in a particular area of public protection, to become an armed officer on the transit system, but we need to make sure that we use the skill potential of people, irrespective of their age, across the board.

There are a lot of people who do not get the opportunity to develop their skills and who do not maximise their potential. I think it is one of the saddest things, as well as being wasteful, for people not to develop their skill. I think of people like my late mother who wanted to be a teacher but the family could not afford it and an aunt, who was very talented at art, but never had the opportunity to develop those talents. I think, if you asked around amongst the generation of parents and grandparents you would find that there are a lot of people who could have done things but never had the opportunity, whether it be in the skills area or other related areas of training and education.

I do not want to take too long with this motion. I am just really flagging to the government to be particularly careful to ensure that there is a quality regime in place and, in particular, that it is enforced. It is one thing to say that providers have to meet standards; it is another thing to make sure they do. The government, to its credit, cracked down on a dubious operation, I think it was last year, involving overseas students.

I move this motion really, as I say, to fly the flag. I have had concerns expressed to me by TAFE people who are in my electorate but also from the AEU. I will not go into all the concerns they have about increased costs, potential closure of campuses and the unrestrained growth of private for-profit providers. I just flag to the government: make sure that, in this process, we do not literally throw out the baby with the bathwater, but keep and reinforce TAFE and ensure that we do actually have a program which is skills for all and quality VET programs because our future depends on developing a highly-skilled workforce in this state.

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (11:37): I support the motion put forward by the member for Fisher and I thank him for his contribution. I would just like to take this opportunity to talk about the measures under Skills for All. They will not only allow TAFE SA to participate in a more demand-driven training market that reflects the needs of businesses, industries and students but these measures will support and invest in TAFE SA to give it an opportunity to prosper and grow.

As most members will be aware, Skills for All will bring fundamental changes to the state's entire system of publicly funded vocational education and training (VET) and goes beyond reform of TAFE SA. The package of reforms aims to increase the number of South Australians in skills training, raise the skills level of South Australians, increase the number of South Australians with post-school qualifications and increase labour force participation. To achieve these aims, we have committed an extra $194 million over six years, which will support the total number of additional training places of 100,000 over six years from 2010-11.

To deliver these additional training places, Skills for All will provide more public training funds, contestable to more approved training providers. This will mean that South Australians aged 16 years and over will be eligible to use the government-funded training subsidy, which gives them a greater range of training providers, and get the training needed for the jobs of today and the high-tech and high-skilled jobs of the future.

There have been some recent comparisons made between Skills for All and the Victorian reforms. While there are similarities with the reforms in Victoria, there are key features that distinguish Skills for All. The state government, after investigating the Victorian reforms, will adopt a number of features in the Skills for All policy which will:

maintain South Australia's reputation for high-quality training providers;

provide a generous entitlement to subsidised training for individuals;

ensure equitable and affordable fees for all South Australians wishing to undertake training;

give support to TAFE in transition; and

ensure training decisions will not be left totally to the market, but managed by caps and incentives to ensure the training meets the needs of industry.

Importantly, TAFE will continue to be owned by the state government. It will not be privatised. Skills for All will introduce a more contestable market which will be managed to ensure that the high reputation of quality of training in South Australia will be maintained. Training providers wishing to access public funds under Skills for All will be required to meet rigorous assessment criteria in addition to the standard registration process. This will help to ensure that South Australia retains its reputation for high-quality education and training. A separate assessment process is not required in Victoria.

Under Skills for All, the training subsidy is more generous and inclusive to people wanting to retrain at the same and lower levels. All eligible South Australians aged 16 and over will be able to undertake at least one subsidised training course at any level, regardless of the level of qualification already held. This is not the case in Victoria for people aged 20 and over, whose entitlement is generally only for training at foundational skills level and for any qualifications higher than qualifications already held.

The Skills for All subsidy will also ensure equitable and affordable fees for students, particularly for training at foundation level. The tuition fee for all training up to and including certificate II level will be fully subsidised by the government, with no tuition fees. In contrast, the Victorian government does not fully subsidise foundation level courses or training up to and including certificate II. In addition, qualifications at certificate III level and above will receive significant subsidies.

Unlike the experience in Victoria, Skills for All will introduce maximum and minimum restrictions on the course fees, which will prevent providers from overcharging students while ensuring that providers cannot offer training at artificially low prices. As the state's largest provider of publicly funded training, TAFE SA has an important role in meeting industry training and community service needs and contributing to the social and economic development of communities, particularly in regional South Australia.

As TAFE SA is already widely recognised for quality training, employment outcomes and student satisfaction, under Skills for All, TAFE SA has an opportunity to attract more funding and grow in the contestable funding environment. The state government is committed to ensuring that TAFE SA will be supported through transition. It is proposed that TAFE SA will be established as a single statutory authority comprised of three institutes, which will ensure that system-wide benefits of TAFE SA are preserved.

By contrast, all Victorian institutes compete against each other for students and revenue. There are almost 20 TAFE institutes and TAFE divisions of university competing alongside private providers for students and contestable government funding. The state government remains committed to investing in TAFE SA as a public institution and has committed more than $200 million to upgrade existing infrastructure and to build new facilities since 2008.

In addition to the governance reform and significant capital investment, a transitional funding framework under Skills for All will support TAFE SA and acknowledges the additional operating costs and obligations associated with being a public institution. This will include transitional arrangements, such as a higher subsidy price for TAFE SA compared with non-TAFE SA training providers to deliver the same training, a purchase agreement that will include separate funding for payment for other services and funding for community service obligations, including funding for TAFE SA across regional South Australia and the APY lands, as well as ongoing funding for learner support services.

Contestable funding will be phased in so that TAFE SA and the rest of the training market will have time to adapt. This phase-in period is expected to be four years and will ensure effective implementation and review of Skills for All. TAFE SA plays a fundamental part in the education, training and employment of our community and that is why these measures are central to the Skills for All policy. By supporting and investing in TAFE SA, we will build stronger foundations for the future of the training system and skills development in this state.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:43): I rise to support the Hon. Bob Such (member for Fisher) in his motion. I think the important part of the words he has carefully chosen is that 'TAFE is not undermined'. It will not surprise anybody here that I am not generally into protecting industries or institutions or service providers from competition, but I think it is very important that TAFE is not undermined by this process.

TAFE is an incredibly important institution in our community, and education is not one of the services that should be chosen basically by just taking the cheapest option available. I am not suggesting that the government would do that, but I do just want to highlight that this is not a lowest cost denominator type of service. Ensuring that TAFE is not undermined is exceptionally important.

TAFE provides an opportunity for people of all ages, sexes and religions, whether they are people who might be on a very normal course, from primary school to high school and on to higher education, and choose to do that through TAFE, whether they are people who have left the school system early and found a way to return to education; they might be migrants, they might be people looking for career changes. TAFE is an incredibly important organisation.

It is not to say that none of the educational services that TAFE provides could not be provided by other institutions. In fact, I am sure some of them can be and I am sure some of them should be, but making sure that the existing TAFE process is not undermined by opening it up to competition is very, very important.

I support something that the member for Frome said yesterday in a different debate, that he was very disappointed that funding of TAFE programs slowed down in recent years with the economic slowdown. I believe, and said at the time, that when things are getting tighter in the job market, when the economy slows down and when opportunities for employment slow down, that is probably exactly the time when opportunities to study in TAFE should be increased and given a slightly higher priority. That gives people a year or two or three to get through their training, by which time we would hope that job opportunities would start to come back around.

We have seen in the last few years a really crazy situation where job opportunities and training opportunities have both diminished at the same time. When job opportunities diminish, we really want to increase training opportunities so that when job opportunities, the demand for workers (as we all hope will happen throughout our state, but particularly in the northern part of South Australia due to the increase in mining activity) and when jobs are needed people should be available for them. The only way that could happen is if they started their training a year or two or three beforehand. So, I think that is extremely important.

On this topic, too, I have to say that I was extremely disappointed when the state and federal governments jointly axed the Australian Technical College program, which was a very good partnership between TAFE and DECS (as it was called back then) to train people. It allowed people who may not have finished high school or got into an apprenticeship to actually do one or the other or both through the ATC program. There are actual examples of young people who would never have done either of those things completing high school and getting an apprenticeship or a trade qualification. I thought it was a fantastic program, and I was very disappointed that it was axed a couple of years ago.

I have had representations to me—written, verbal and in person—from people in the electorate of Stuart who consider this motion to be a very important issue. Of all of the different things that they said me, and many of them have great justification, the one that really hit home hardest to me is that they fear that what is going on at the moment may turn current partners in tertiary education into competitors.

Right now, TAFE is working cooperatively and collaboratively with other organisations to provide a full range of educational opportunities to people. They fear that they might move from being partners to being competitors. Again, I have no fear of competition. I think most industries and most organisations benefit from competition and suffer from protection. I am not for a second suggesting that TAFE should be protected but, getting back to the member for Fisher's motion, he wants to ensure that TAFE is not undermined by this process, and I support him in that.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:49): I do not need to labour the point, but I just reinforce that I am heartened by the comments on behalf the government from the member for Little Para and the member for Stuart. I now ask that this motion be put to the vote.

Motion carried.

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