TAFE: More of the same won't cut it!
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 125 No 8, 6 November 2020, page no. 17
There’s a joke going around at the moment that I’m guilty of over-telling: “Whatever you do, don’t reboot 2020 – it’s got a virus.”
Opening and beginning to read the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) Annual Report 2019–20, I had the feeling we could make the same joke re vocational education in this country. I will admit to starting this article without even having read more than a paragraph or two. But it gives me the same feeling as watching a rerun of the movie “Groundhog Day”.
It is evident that the federal government is so heavily invested in its current vocational education approach that it is doubling down, effectively rebooting a virus-infected idea to the detriment of the country and the students who rely on vocational education to give them the skills needed to participate meaningfully in the world of work. That virus is the belief that markets - for-profit provision of services - does “it” better and more efficiently than public provision. And we won’t even get started on the billions being allocated to employer subsidies and the consequences of that. Wait for this column next year!
In the current system, the largest employer of apprentices in Australia, All Trades Queensland - registered training organisation (RTO) and group training organisation (GTO) - has just stepped from voluntary administration to shareholders voting to liquidate both the RTO and GTO components of the business. This is thrusting hundreds of apprentices into an uncertain environment, unsure of whether they have an employer and if they will be able to complete their training, and through whom.
I have no doubt that the administrators of the company are operating with goodwill and are doing their utmost to place every single student. But this is just the latest in a long line of failures, rorts and flops in the market-driven vocational education setting.It isn’t where we should be after nearly two decades of failed experimentation and significant financial loss.
There is no doubt that it will be the public providers that will have to pick up the bulk of the mess left by the collapse of All Trades. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be insufficient funding available to bridge the inevitable gaps and partial completions left in its wake. As has happened historically, the public provider will have to absorb the cost, and that means educators’ workloads will increase in an environment which is already tense with the demands of a COVID-normal setting.
No, I don’t have the answer. But just doing more of the same is not it. Maybe a solution might rest in a new model of vocational education, something more than training packages and “competence”, an emphasis on professional teachers rather than expensive external regulation, and full financial recognition of the important role of the public provider through dedicated funding.
No, I’m not feeling optimistic at the moment. But whoever has won the state election will need to come to grips with this for the benefit of our communities and those who work in them. But you’ve probably heard that before.