15 September 2010
Keating speaks up for the TAFE cause
Our calls for the Victorian Government to roll back the TAFE changes have been picked up by former prime minister Paul Keating in a withering attack on the fee hikes.
Keating, speaking at a TAFE function quoted in The Age, warned that the imposition of full fees for workers who want to retrain or change career are particularly unfair and risky for the economy.
''Someone who has been forced by retrenchment to retrain, or chooses to pursue a new career pathway and needs to undertake a diploma should be able to undertake this with the same level of government support as those attaining a new or higher qualification,'' Keating said.
''A case can be made for the equitable treatment of those whose ambitions are to retrain.
''Equal opportunity should be given to those responding to changes in the workforce, seeking to step sideways or even taking a step back before they take a step forward.''
Keating is the most prominent politician yet to take up the campaign against the Government's ill-thought-out and retrograde reforms.
TAFE 4 All has argued that the changes are a massive blow for graduates or employees who want to specialise, parents who want to return to work after family leave or anyone who wants to retrain after being retrenched.
Government subsidies for diploma and advanced diplomas have been scrapped for anyone with a matching qualification or higher. Full fees for advanced diplomas can reach $20,000 and some courses are seriously under threat.
The TAFE 4 All campaign has heard from people who been refused a subsidy on the basis of a qualification taken as a teenager over 20 years before in an unrelated field.
Keating also picked up our point that in today's fluid job market it will be common for people to retrain many times as they switch careers. But that will be made much harder by these changes.
Read the full article in The Age here.
— Nic Barnard is the AEU's communications officer
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