Transcript of Phillip Chadwick President TAFE TA presentation
Katoomba Nov 10 2012
Good afternoon, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today on the very important issue of “Education the equaliser” and in particular Public Education.
My name is Phill Chadwick, I am a tradie, a teacher of electrical trades and the proud president of my union. As a practicing Electrical Trades teacher with 22 years of teaching experience under my belt. I have held positions at North Sydney, Granville and my current location at Miller in Sydney South Western Suburbs. I live and work in my local area, both myself and my children have been educated in the local public schools system.
I have been asked to speak to today to inform your community on the current reforms to the Public Education System and the devastating impact it will have on TAFE colleges and most importantly TAFE students in your local area. Education is a great equaliser but under the reforms now being introduced by Barry O’Farrell a few will be more equal than the many.
TAFE NSW’s roll is to deliver High Quality, Low Cost, Vocational Education and Training, with an emphasis on access and equity to its students. The origins of TAFE began in 1833 as the “Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts” delivering courses in popular music, dancing as well as geometry and architectural drawing. Even from the early days the providers of technical education in NSW took the view that education should not only strengthen job prospects – it should enrich society.
In 1883, now known as “Sydney Technical College” financial responsibility was assumed by the state government. NSW has now enjoyed 130 years of publicly funded Vocational Education and Training. TAFE NSW is now considered as a world class training organisation.
TAFE NSW has risen to world class status despite being hampered by years of financial neglect from both state and federal governments, for years TAFE has had to run on the smell of an oily rag. In April of this year in a funding review similar to as Gonski is to schools, the Council of Australian Governments “Partnership Agreement” provided close to 2 billion dollars of funding to VET systems Australia wide.
Conditions of the funding required the state governments to open TAFE to completion from private providers and to produce a business model to show how the public provider’s role would be maintained and protected in the competitive system.
In May of this year, in the NSW state budget, as part of 1.7 Billion dollar attack on public education, Barry O’Farrell took away the oil and left us with just the rag. He chose to protect TAFE by ripping more than 54 million dollars from the TAFE budget and announcing the loss more than 800 full time teaching jobs.
Regrettably in the Blue Mountains region the budget cuts have impacted heavily on of all things, tourism and hospitality. The outdoor recreation certificates 3 and 4 course have been targeted and stripped of subsidised funding in the same way Fine Arts has been in other parts of the state. Outdoor recreation students despite the course having a history of 79% of graduates finding employment in that field, face the prospect of paying full commercial fees next year. The teachers of Out Door Recreation also face uncertain futures. Under a “Spill and Fill” of the 6 full time staff in the section, only 3 will be employed next year. Teachers are being forced to compete with colleges for their own jobs. Further to that there are more Part Time Casual Teachers that will have no work next year. 70% of all face to face hours taught at TAFE are delivered by Part Time Casual Teachers in what’s known as precarious employment.
Also under threat are the certificate 1 and 2 Cafe skills and Healing courses taught at Katoomba.
The rhetoric of the Macquarie street spin doctors to support this is “we feel it is only necessary to put government money into courses were jobs are an outcome”. So much for local decisions, this only leaves the local blame.
Throughout the rest of the state institute managers have chosen to target our Special Program areas for cuts. These include teaching areas such as;
- Adult basic Education
- Disabilities support
- English for Speakers of Other Languages
- Multicultural support
- General Education and
- Outreach - these are the people who help people back into training after many years.
Disability, English for speakers of other languages and multicultural teachers are to be reclassified as brokers, effectively preventing them from direct contact with students who have special needs. This will be left to regular trade teachers who do not have training or speciality in these areas.
General Education Students will suffer the loss of the ability to access HSC subjects at TAFE. This area has been targeted as the government has raised the school leaving age to 17 and considers this service to students are no longer required. The government forgets about the students that don’t fit in at High School and somehow manage to slip through the cracks. There will be no second chances.
Considering the social fabric and makeup of our community in the west of sydney, I find these cuts which target some of the most disadvantaged, a heartless act. I am informed that as a result more than 450 part time teachers will be out of work, this on top of the 800 positions that I have already mentioned. They are the invisible statistics, they won’t need deletion, they just won’t get that phone call to come into work.
Teaching sections across the entire metropolitan area are being RATIONALISED. This is code to be closed and moved to another location far, far away. Trade sections such as “panel beating spray painting and sign writing” are being shut at Wetherill Park and Mount Druitt with the loss of more 30 teachers in the process. Students will be relocated to Ultimo and Campbelltown Colleges if they can find a spot.
But our problems don’t stop there, Education minister Adrian Piccoli has recently announced the Smart and Skills reforms to Vocation Education and Training. In 2014 the NSW government will introduce their COAG required “Smart and Skilled” reforms to the NSW TAFE system. These reforms mirror changes that have crippled the Victorian TAFE system. These changes have lead wide spread deletion of the courses offered to students and the pending closure and sale of a number of TAFE colleges due declining market share in enrolments. The decline was due to the introduction of Private for Profit
Providers into the VET system. TAFE enrolments’ remained static but Aggressive marketing tactics and offers such as fee IPADs loured students to the privates and enrolments exploded.
This mess is a clear example of a policy that might have looked fine on paper but simply didn’t work in practice. In 2011, the Victorian Government was forced to inject an extra $400 million into Training, only to find the money gobbled up by a long list of pink bats style scandals exposed this year. Under the guise of flexibility, courses where delivered in impossibly short time frames. ABC’s 730 ran several stories on the Dodgy providers. One of which was the largest single private provider in Victoria (refer to 730 archives for names).
The Victorian government then stunned everyone by taking $290 million from the not-for profit TAFE providers to compensate for the blow-out. But TAFE did not cause the problem. The VET budget was blown out by private entrepreneurs. The Government had no proper mechanism to monitor these providers. The outcome of the Baillieu cuts is clear: 2000+ experienced TAFE teachers will be lost to the sector; COURSES are being cut; FEES are going up; REGIONAL students have less choice of career; RURAL communities will find it harder to develop new skills; and PUBLIC assets will be run down and sold off.
At the moment back in NSW, TAFE students may re-enter the training system a number of times throughout their lives to top up training as their work and personal situations change. At the moment the cost of this training is subsidised by the government. In 2014 as a result of smart and skilled students will only receive government subsidised training if they are on the Education minister’s skills shortage list. This will be a once in a life time one off “entitlement”. Courses for areas not on the list will pay full commercial fees.
Skills shortage areas are recognised by the “Productivity Commission and State Training Services” as Electrical, Construction, Engineering, Mining, Aged and Child care. There is no guarantee that all, or any of these skills areas will be on Mr Picolli’s secret list. The list will be dynamic, it will be complied through “consultation” with industry and market research. I hope the consultation is better that what has happened here in the Blue Mountains with ODR.
For example of what the cost of full commercial fees will be, Fine Arts students at TAFE will be forced to pay fees of around $8,000 to $10,000 per year. This will give you an indication of what the government plans for courses not on Mr Picolli’s list.
These reforms are retrospective, if you have already done a certificate 3 level course like a trade, any further training at TAFE or any other private provider will be at full commercial rates.
The education minister has stated that we do not want to repeat the mistakes of Victoria. This is how Education minister intends to stop the cost blow outs of Victoria in NSW. Under Smart and Skilled, shortages will now be created in areas where no skills shortage existed due to the short sighted stimulus and response method of planning.
Education will no longer be the Equaliser. Those on the skills list will be more equal and have more access to training, than those who are not on the list. Under smart and skilled the devastation to the TAFE system will be worse than Victoria, as student’s desert training due to the oppressive fees. 130 years of public funded High Quality low cost training will be sacrificed in a Race to the Bottom as public and private VET providers compete for students.
What must be done. Chris Evans must grow some of the proverbial and take a big stick to the states on Victoria, NSW and Qld and force them honour their obligation under the partnership program to protect the public provide provider.
In the short term we must demand the NSW Liberal Government grow a social conscious, lobby and protest to marginal Liberal MPs to reverse the education cuts and job cuts at TAFE. In the long term Vote out BOF and cast him and the ANP back into the political wilderness where they belong.
The governments spin doctors will label my words as scaremongering. I am not a scaremonger; I am a tradie, a teacher of electrical trades and the very proud president of my union.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment