TAFE and Background Briefing

[pmcgee]

Regulator 'flying blind' in widely-rorted vocational education loans scheme - Background Briefing - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[AlexS]

TAFE has been destroyed by a succession of state and federal governments, combined with infighting and questionable practices in the federal agency that managed the AQF.

NSW TAFE, while it had top quality teachers, was grossly over-managed, and had become top-heavy with managers who were trained school teachers who either couldn't get a teaching job, or couldn't hold one. Their view of voc. ed. (and that of the politicians) was that it was for those who couldn't make it to university, whereas about than half of the students I taught were graduates who saw that there was a better job to be had with a TAFE course.

[Twisted Tenon]

In my view the state wins when it produces a skilled tradesperson or other qualified worker. That worker then goes into a well payed job and pays the state back by paying their taxes and contributing to the economy by buying things with their own money. It shouldn't be all about this user pays claptrap.

TT

[Mobyturns]

In my view the state wins when it produces a skilled tradesperson or other qualified worker. That worker then goes into a well payed job and pays the state back by paying their taxes and contributing to the economy by buying things with their own money. It shouldn't be all about this user pays claptrap.

TT

Unfortunately in modern business everything must have a cost that can be tracked in a spreadsheet by a bean counter with no shop floor experience. Said bean counter can then manipulate and analyze the figures to say AH Ha! - I can save money - lets go virtual - no up front CAPEX costs, no ongoing OPEX - a sure fire winner - EXCEPT for the following .....

The cost to train that bean counter is minimal compared to a highly skilled tradesman. A bean counter can be trained in a virtual world, a tradie can't! The apprentice tradesman requires hands on training and access to real tools and machines which at times are not available in their normal workplaces. Some machines are so state of the art that the tradesman of the future should have access to them now so that they are aware of the cost /benefit analysis and the benefits of including them in hopefully the tradesman's future ventures.

This is where TAFE excelled - world class facilities in some centers and real world set ups in the general workshops. TAFE has been getting gutted for years, even decades now. Industry in general is the looser, but with truly global competition in the job and business market there is little prospect for apprentices or on shore manufacturing in Australia's near future.

[rustynail]

My Son is an electrical engineer, highly sought after and well paid. Why? Because of TAFE.
After completing two trade courses he did both diploma and advanced diploma in electrical engineering after that a degree at uni. In his opinion, he got much more out of TAFE than uni, particularly from a practical point of view. He worries about the uni only trained engineers when it comes to complicated stuff.

[Twisted Tenon]

Unfortunately in modern business everything must have a cost that can be tracked in a spreadsheet by a bean counter with no shop floor experience. Said bean counter can then manipulate and analyze the figures to say AH Ha! - I can save money - lets go virtual - no up front CAPEX costs, no ongoing OPEX - a sure fire winner - EXCEPT for the following .....

I think it's darker than that Mobyturns. The prudent economic decision is to turn out qualified workers by the bucket load. This ensures a glut of skilled workers and thus their charges/wages are kept to a minimum.
"User pays" is an ideology from the dark side of economic rationalism, and it has infected social policy to the extent that our our children are being priced out of any meaningful education by both the federal and state governments.

TT

[artme]

The destruction - willful destruction - of the TAFE system is a blot o9n our pysche, and an everlasting disgrace for
the bloody polies and bureaucrats who have overseen it.

In many country towns TAFE provided excellent back up and further education for the local populace. I learned to weld at TAFE,
both oxy and electric. I often referred to TAFE personel with problems I had to solve. Always very helpful people.

The point about over management is true but how you would get around theunions in these sorts of matters was always going to be a problem.

Just a point here. I heard of a case where a position in one faculty was filled by a person from another faculty who had no idea of the trade and
its requirements. This happened simply on the basis of seniority!!!

We have seen state governments systematically dismantle many smaller town institutions that have been part of the fabric of those towns for decades.
In Leeton, for instance, the local hospital is a shadow of its former self thanks to state government downgrades. I have no doubt other towns have
similar stories to tell. The local Tafe has been skeletonised according to my friends.

Alex, I take some small measure of offense to your assessment of TAFE teachers. Having qualifications as a trade person is one thing. Having qualifications
as a teacher is another. Ideally trade qualified people should be put through a teaching course before being appointed as TAFE teachers. Conversely those
who go from teaching to TAFE should be required to get some sort of background in industry where this is relevant. At one stage in NSW trade qualified people could
get a job as a high school man. arts teacher with some extr teaching studies to help them along the way. Several teachers, including heads of departments and principals,
that I knew welcomed these people because it helped solve a shortfall. However there were always concerns about the gap between work/ trade skills and teaching skills.
I don't think it is fair of anyone to characterize the TAfE staff - even some of the-in the way you have.

[DaveTTC]

Tafe teachers are meant to have cert iv in TAA or now TAE
Training and education
While it may not be as extensive as twacher trainig it is traiing. End of the day you get teachers from either system that excell and that are duds

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

[AlexS]

Artme, I think you may have misunderstood my point. The TAFE teachers with whom I had contact, both as a student and a part-time teacher, were nearly all professionals in their field who had then done teacher training of some sort - at least either a 1 year teaching Diploma or a Cert IV in Workplace Training & Assessment. A few, mainly teaching subjects such as Maths & English, were trained high school teachers who had moved into teaching in the TAFE system. I found that in general, they were pretty capable, and had their students' interests at heart.

My gripe is with some of the bureaucrats of TAFE, many of whom had trained as teachers, but had had little or no experience of teaching. The TAFE bureaucracy seemed designed simply to keep the paperwork flowing, rather than to produce trained people.

I saw 'pet projects' started but never finished, and others that were completed at no small expense, but that had no effect and were hardly used by their target market. There were so many small empires with no one to demolish them when necessary.

[rustynail]

What I have seen of TAFE teachers in recent years has way out classed the boofheads we had back in the sixties and seventies.