THE NSW Teachers Federation wants a guarantee there will be no cuts to TAFE teacher and backroom jobs in Western NSW under changes announced on Wednesday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
TAFE Western will go as 10 TAFE institutes are merged into a single, multi-campus entity while campuses will be sold and a new digital education headquarters will be created in regional NSW.
Skills Minister John Barilaro has labelled the proposal a “once-in-a-generation” reform.
The government says the changes will expand TAFE's reach and reverse a huge decline in student enrolments.
But the federation’s TAFE organiser Rob Long says the government is not dealing with the real future for TAFE and its students.
The number of students enrolled in government-funded vocational education in NSW has plummeted by 86,300 in the past year, according to research from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research.
“The Baird government is making vocational education unaffordable for many students,” Mr Long said.
The Baird government is making vocational education unaffordable.
- Union organiser Rob Long
“There has been a dramatic reduction in the number of students participating in the guaranteed and income-funded vocational education places, from 2012 there were 539,000 students in government-subsidised places. In September 2015 there were 255,781.”
Mr Long says he will fight for Western NSW jobs.
‘’We assume with a restructure of that size, there will be job cuts,” he said.
“I again will insist there are no teacher cuts in Western, but already there have been redundancies in Western Institute and we call on the government to guarantee no more teachers are lost.’’
A TAFE Western spokesperson said the plan had given it a direction. “We now have the green light to get on and do what we need to do to deliver ... high quality, industry-relevant training for the jobs of tomorrow.”
Opposition skills spokesperson Pru Carr said the government was setting up TAFE to fail. “Make no mistake, the Baird Government is hellbent on dismantling TAFE,” Ms Carr said.