26 February 2010
Higher fees have halved our enrolments
Brumby Government spokespeople still equate "Skill Reform" with "increased training places" and "encouraging people to take up Vocational Education and Training".
Yet I have not yet heard anyone explain satisfactorily the mechanism that would actually translate Skill Reform's sharp fee increases, reduced or abolished concessions and HECS style millstones into increased enrolments.
Introduction of higher fees for Diplomas at the Melbourne metropolitan TAFE campus I work at appear to have actually cut our enrolments by about 50% - the numbers for our Diploma are about half what they normally are.
Already last year the TAFE was acting defensively to try to protect itself from anticipated hefty falls in enrolments, despite government ministers claiming skill reform would increase the numbers accessing TAFE education.
The department I work in voted with its feet. Anticipating sharply reduced funding, it decided to head down a slippery slope. All our year-long subjects (which allowed clusters of competencies to be done in parallel as they are actually practised in industry) have been replaced by semester-long subjects which combine the competencies into smaller clusters.
It is thought that with funding now related to competency completions under Skill Reform, this will help reduce our anticipated funding shortfall, as no competency takes a full year to complete. So even if a student leaves in the second semester, some competencies may still have been completed in the first.
The problem is, a competency cannot span two clusters (subjects), effectively forcing the two clusters of competencies arising from the original year-long subject to be done serially (not in parallel), or in the same semester (too much too soon for the students). And this is not to mention anything of the extra administrative drudgery that will be entailed.
So much for the holistic intentions of the TAFE training package!
What is happening is the funding arrangements being introduced by Skill Reform are compromising the integrity of the education that TAFE will be delivering. The losers will be students, industry, public education - in fact, ALL VICTORIANS.
— Blog poster prefers to remain anonymous.
After receiving a serious illness diagnosis 5 years ago, I ended up on DSP. 2 Years ago, after a hell of a fight to stay alive (no hysterics here) I began looking into going back to school to enhance my quality of life and to get back into being a participating community member. When I began my enquiries, fees for my Diploma of Visual Arts were 'doable' and more so due to concessions for low income students-to-be. Needless to say, I waited too long to decide I COULD do this, and now, am battling to find the money to pay for my course. I do not qualify for VET FEE help, like many other students I have since met, and the fees for my course have gone from $50 approx. to just under $3000. No concessions. No part time. I also live rurally and have an hour and a half bus journey each way to go to my TAFE college. So far, I have not missed a day. But it has been extraordinarily taxing on me, someone who has to deal with the realities of having a serious illness at the same time as trying to deal with the beauracracy of fee paying. Right now, I am in the process of trying to get a student loan, but that is only for the initial deposit of the grand sum. And that is only for the first year of a two year course. If I am granted a loan for $720 I still have to come up with $300 approx, per month for fee instalment repayments. I have absolutely NO IDEA how I am going to pull that off, but I'm determined.
Denise, SurfCoast Victoria, 03 MAR 2010 17:43
What we are experiencing here are the
effects of having the upper echelons
of TAFE departmental bureaucracies being
comprised of young apparatchiks on contracts
rather than experienced and dedicated educators
capable of offering frank and fearless
advice to their political masters.
So rather than whisper words of wisdom up the line
to ears that don't want to hear about the likely
falls in enrolments and (hence course cancellations)
arising from "Skill Reform", these
apparatchiks devise "tricks" (e.g. smaller clusters
of competencies) to try to protect the
budget bottom line and make the policy appear to work.
Never mind that the baby (educational integrity in this
case) is going down the plughole with the bathwater !
Hopefully the body that administers the TAFE national
training package has some sort of scrutinising / policing
capability to protect the admirable holistic intent
of its training package from being savaged by "Skill Reform"
in Victoria.
Gerald, Dandenong, 28 FEB 2010 12:48
For many years TAFE has provided an
opportunity for people in disadvantaged
situations (including myself) to have access to quality education
at an affordable cost in order to acquire
a skill set necessary to secure employment.
People in these situations are now thinking twice about
enrolling due to skill reform having tethered the
opportunity to a HECS style millstone.
Many will be disheartened , dragging the whole Victorian
community down for years to come as a result. Expect
more people to be drawing Social Security benefits
(putting a millstone around the tax payers neck as well).
Lucky (because I did my TAFE course before "Skill Reform"), Happily in paid gainful employment, 27 FEB 2010 15:41
At the TAFE college where I work we have, for the first time, also been instructed to deliver subjects in isolation from each other contrary to the recommendations of the National Training Package and at odds with sound teaching practice.
Classes have been shuffled, classes have been cancelled. Sessional teachers have lost their jobs (always a menacing cloud on the horizon, but this year the reality is unprecedented) Decisions are being made on the fly in a desperate bid to survive. Skills Reform indeed.
Jeanette, southern suburbs, 27 FEB 2010 10:58
There is a case for investigation into corruption. Students are paying for dual courses of up to 1300 hours yet are getting less that 800 hours. Furthermore the monies for 1300 are being collected from students and the government. Was rthis the experience of the students attending international colleges as well?
anonymous, Mornington Peninsula, 27 FEB 2010 10:06
At the TAFE college where I work ,we have also been instructed to deliver subjects as singular units, although this is at odds with the recommendations of the National Training Package and contrary to good teaching practise. There has also been a reshuffling of classes, cancellation of some classes (some classes not running at all) and adhoc decision making as we desperately attempt to reduce our funding losses. Job losses for casual staff (always a menacing cloud on the horizon) have occurred.
Anon2, melbourne metro, 27 FEB 2010 09:31
Having completed a higher degree at university I went to TAFE looking for competency based training as a way of learning how to apply the knowledge I had gained through my higher degree. It is sad to see the change that will lead to semester long subjects. Already in the tafe course I am studying the teachers have rearranged the teaching programme to avoid the mismatch of subjects and competencies.
Shirley, Rural Victoria, 26 FEB 2010 15:25
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