Federal Labor is promising to cover the cost of 465,000 TAFE places, including 45,000 new places. But there’s a chronic shortage of VET teachers and trainers, so that problem has to be fixed first.
The vocational education sector has an important role to play in social inclusion of disadvantaged groups in learning and work.
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VET’s role in employable skill development is critical. But we also need to strongly support the role VET plays in getting disadvantaged groups into education and work.
Vocational education and training can help increase workforce participation by offering opportunities to disadvantaged groups, including women and people from rural communities.
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VET needs a new set of priorities and operating principles that are fit for the future.
Australia’s VET system has been in an uphill battle with reforms that have led to lower-quality training and misappropriation of resources.
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Diplomas of circus arts, fraud control, explosive ordinance manufacture, and sound and vibration therapy are among 478 courses that will be excluded from government funding.
Women are likely to be disproportionately affected by the new VET student loan scheme.
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A new VET student loan scheme will aim at putting a stop to rorting by dodgy private colleges. Education Minister Simon Birmingham says the new scheme is being built from the ground up.
Simon Birmingham said all private education institutions would have to apply to be eligible for the new program.
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Under the proposed plan for reform, there is still a risk that private providers will continue to shop between the Commonwealth and the states for the best price and conditions.
A cap is a sensible option, but it must form part of a total redesign of the VET financing system.
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Loan caps are only a partial solution to a much bigger problem – declining public investment in VET and a dysfunctional VET financing system, which neither side of politics has been willing to address.
Maintaining community confidence in the value of VET qualifications is essential for a functioning labour market.
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Damian Oliver, University of Technology Sydney and Serena Yu, University of Technology Sydney
Lured by government subsidies, registered training organisations are enrolling people into VET courses that do not match their needs and for which there is a dubious case at best for taxpayer support.
Funding of vocational education is suffering given neither the state nor Federal government has sole responsibility.
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Changes to the regulation of Vocational Education and Training are good, but they ignore the real problem, that the sector is chronically underfunded.
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After announcing a slew of changes to vocational education and training (VET) earlier in the week, Industry Minister Ian MacFarlane made further changes yesterday to the regulation of the sector. While…