TAFE SA

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:00): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills regarding the issue of TAFE.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: It has been brought to my attention that a number of TAFE teachers are being forced to reduce course delivery time since the Skills for All reforms were implemented. I will read out just one example provided from a teacher:

We have been requested to compress our content delivery into fewer hours. In 2012 I delivered six units of competencies which total to 270 nominal hours. Our previous manager requested us to reflect 60 per cent of the nominal hours in our timetabled workload, which is 162 hours.

They continue:

In 2014 the level 7 staff member requested that we reduce our contact hours. The same units of competency on the timetable totals to 99 hours, which is equal to 37 per cent of the nominal hours. My concern is that I am taking on more units of competencies, but my hourly load seems to be diminishing. At this point I would say that I am underloaded.

My question is: is the minister aware that there is pressure being placed on TAFE teachers to reduce the delivery time to well below the nominal hours resulting in a reduction of the quality of the courses and setting up some students, who have paid for their courses, to fail those courses?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (15:01): I thank the honourable member for her question in relation to TAFE. TAFE is a wonderful training and education facility that provides quality training to South Australians. Since the introduction of Skills for All, TAFE SA's publicly funded course enrolments have, in fact, increased due to students accessing Skills for All subsidies.

The introduction of Skills for All in July 2012 has provided students with a greater choice in training provider as well. There has been an increase in the number of training providers in South Australia. TAFE SA's activity supports skill and productivity increases in South Australia's workforce. TAFE SA is currently South Australia's largest training provider in South Australia and has a history, as I said, of delivering really quality training and providing stability in the training market. It is heavily reliant on funding received from Skills for All and those funds have remained, in fact, fairly steady over the last five years at around about $200 million a year for operational spend and there is significantly more money for infrastructure spend, but the funding has remained fairly consistent.

Since the introduction of Skills for All, enrolments in TAFE SA have increased, while the share of the vocational education and training market in South Australia has declined slightly. In 2013 Skills for All funded course enrolments increased by 60 per cent or, I am advised, 50,600 enrolments to 134,900 course enrolments compared with 84,300 course enrolments in 2012, so you can see a significant improvement there. Over the same period TAFE SA course enrolments increased by 29 per cent or 16,300 enrolments to 71,900.

TAFE's share of the Skills for All market was 53 per cent and I am now advised that there has been a fall in TAFE's share, as I said, due to the increase in the number of other providers in the market, even though, as you have seen, they are still growing, there has been an influx right across the board.

Unlike a number of other state governments, we decided to heavily invest in training through Skills for All. We are serious about growing the economy and supporting new and emerging industries, and we are serious about creating jobs. Since its inception, Skills for All has supported an estimated 139,200 students, who have enrolled in an estimated 183,700 courses in a range of fields.

As I said, they are doing a great job. I have indicated in this place previously that South Australia's VET sector was one of the nation's most cost inefficient, and since the Skills for All and other reforms that were made in our VET sector, South Australia now leads the nation in terms of delivering one of the most cost-efficient VET systems. That is due to a great deal of hard work and partnership between state government agencies, TAFE (being the largest provider) and private providers as well. They are to be congratulated for their efforts.

Clearly, a number of challenges and pressures are facing all of us in a time requiring tight fiscal constraint. Savings have been required of all government agencies across all departments and so too the VET sector. These have been managed extremely well, trying to eliminate duplication and replication. The reforms made with TAFE, for instance going from the three separate institutes now to one statutory corporation, have yielded many efficiencies and have made it a far more cost-effective structure. It is more efficient and it is delivering, as I said, really quality outcomes at very cost-efficient rates. Rather than replicating three different administrative bodies, it is now one, and those reforms have created many advantages for us.

As I said, I do not deny that it is a very tight environment that we are working in. Staff at TAFE are working very hard to find efficiencies in an ongoing way and they make decisions about their courses all the time. Nothing stays the same. The climate changes, student demands change, and we have had improvements in technology. More students are accessing training, or components of training, online than ever before, not requiring the same level of face-to-face class time that we have traditionally seen, and so our training providers, including TAFE, keep changing and developing their services to fit industry demand and students' expectations.