2 September 2014
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Victoria’s TAFE system is near collapse, according to the Labor opposition, after $1.2 billion in government cuts, the Victorian Training Market Half Year Report has revealed.
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It shows that TAFEs’ share of the training market dropped from 48% in the first half of 2010 to just 27% in the first half of 2014.
Overall, government subsidised enrolments continued to decrease for the first half of 2014, with a 5% drop from the same time in 2013.
TAFE enrolments in the first half have fallen 28% to 100,200 compared with 138,300 a year ago, while private providers have increased their enrolments by 20% to 214,300 from 180,000 a year ago.
Labor spokesperson Steven Herbert said that if this trend were to continue under a future coalition government, TAFEs’ share would continue dropping to unsustainable levels, predicted to be as low as 8%.
Herbert said that “no amount of spin can hide the fact that under the Napthine government, TAFE is in decline, regional Victoria is suffering, and traineeships are plummeting.”
If the downward trend of TAFEs share continued under another Liberal/National government, TAFE would be under threat of total collapse by the end of the next term of government.
The report also showed enrolments in regional Victoria dropped by 12%, and traineeship enrolments dropped by 25% in the same period.
This market report follows a recent report by Victoria’s Auditor General showing half of Victoria’s 14 TAFEs plunging into the red, with a net deficit for the sector of $16.2 million in 2013, a decrease of $74.8 million from the $58.6 million surplus in 2012. The number of TAFEs with a “high financial sustainability risk” increased from none in 2012 to five in 2013.
See
An inconvenient truth
Victorian TAFE: risk factors continue to deteriorate
TAFE becoming residualised
