Guarantee funding for TAFE

AUSTRALIA – The Australian Education Union (AEU) is calling on the Federal Government to abandon changes to TAFE funding that would undermine quality and push the burden of cost onto students.

The call comes with the release of new polling conducted for the AEU that shows 93 per cent of Australians agree that providing extra funding to TAFE is essential to meet the skills crisis and ensure all Australians have access to low-cost training and education.

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said that the Federal Government’s proposal to force TAFE to compete with low-quality private training facilities for all funding would undermine the TAFE systems ability to provide community services like libraries and quality low-cost training.

“Ninety-five per cent of Australians agree that a well-funded TAFE system is essential to ensure every Australian has the opportunity to access quality vocational and further education.

“TAFE providers need to have guaranteed funding in order to be able to provide affordable training for all.

“If these changes go ahead we will see quality decline and TAFEs will be forced to increase student fees, worsening the skills crisis.

“Competition for scarce government resources and an agenda which seeks to shift the costs of education and training onto individuals will not deliver us a skilled work force for today’s economy.”