4 July 2014
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Analysis by Leesa Wheelahan (University of Toronto and LH Martin Institute) of recent VET statistics shows that TAFE’s share of publicly funded in Australia students is now 55.6%. In Victoria TAFE’s share of publicly funded students has fallen to 37.4%, while in South Australia it has fallen to 52.3%.
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Private providers now teach the majority of students in Victoria (50.5%), and they teach 44% of publicly funded students in South Australia.
TAFE’s share of full-year training equivalents or student load continues to fall. While TAFE did 81.2% of the teaching in 2009, by 2013 this had declined to 63.3%. Private providers more than doubled their share of teaching (and hence public funding) from 14.6% to 32.8% over the same period. However, as before, there are huge differences between states. In the marketised states (Victoria and SA), TAFE’s share has fallen precipitously. In 2009, tare in Victoria did 77.6% of the teaching, while they did 45.3% in 2009. TAFE in South Australia did 71.4% of publicly funded teaching in 2009, but only 51.3% in 2013. Private providers experienced massive, exponential growth in both systems over that time.
Wheelahan concludes that:
The relentless marketisation of VET is leading to the destruction of TAFE.…. TAFE is fast becoming a residual provider, left with teaching what the private providers don’t want to or can’t teach….It is forcing TAFE to be just like a private provider, with the narrow concerns of a private provider.
We are losing the notion of TAFE as a public and community owned asset, embedded in and responsive to communities and employers. Once we’ve destroyed this infrastructure, we can’t put it back together. These changes will force TAFE to abandon VET and VET funded programs as much as possible and move into higher education. It will have to do this to survive. But even here, it will have to compete with private providers who have narrower concerns and smaller costs.
See
Analysis of publicly funded load & student numbers by state and provider type
