TAFE: THE DEBATE WE NEED TO HAVE NOW

TAFE are publicly funded institutions i.e. we the hard-working pay through our taxes to support such government institutions and rightly so. This I do not have a problem with, what is beginning to concern me however is what am I getting for my dollar? Is there value, both social and monetary, in my investment? In order to answer my rhetorical question, I asked myself “What do the general public think TAFE is and its role?”

As an employee in the young TAFE we were always told (in a nutshell) that TAFE was community and there to foster and promote the well being of those in the community including the role of industry within that community. Our role was to develop skills and knowledge that would allow the community and local industry to grow and prosper.  It was also written into our role that TAFE was to have a “social conscious” which is where the first skills training programs started, for the long term unemployed, women returning to work and for people with disabilities. These institutes or colleges as they were then called, were dotted strategically around suburbia. In those days the TAFE work force consisted of a “lean” management structure with sessional teachers, full time teachers, a head of department, maybe  a couple of Associate Directors, (that over saw multiple departments in larger institutions) and a Director. With those noble ambitions, the general public was more than happy to have their hard earned dollars put to work in TAFE.

Today we see a different version of TAFE.

In the larger states we see a proliferation of TAFEs; some eastern states have as many as 6 or more TAFE providers within a ten kilometre radius from each other – all delivering basically the same thing. How much management / leadership, project management etc. can a community carry? We now see independent TAFE Institutes competing against each other for the same local market. We see TAFE institutes competing with other TAFE institutes in other states (there was recently a rash of job advertisements from a NSW TAFE for staff to set up a campus in Victoria and there are interstate TAFE’s operating in South Australia). We also see a plethora of TAFEs competing against each other for the overseas market both domestically and internationally. The structure of TAFE institutes have gone from “lean” to “government” management where there are more managers than workers with Department Heads, Deputy School Deans, Deans of Schools, a multitude of Associate Directors and Directors up to a CEOs.

If TAFEs are funded by the states for the benefit of those who live in the respective state then why are they operating in interstate markets? I am not opposed to TAFEs operating overseas but do we need to do this on an individual college basis? The common sense approach is that such overseas operations need to be removed from individual institutions and centralised at a state level and heaven forbid we even try at a national level (although I think this would be like putting a group of 2 year olds in a room, high on red cordial and lollies and possibly too hard!)  There should be an embargo on TAFE expanding into other states or to compete within their own state with other same state TAFE colleges.  TAFE is one sector…………….the public sector and like any other public sector operations, governments need to reign the high costs of internal competition to a halt, as it is simply a waste of tax payer dollars. It is like Centrelink opening up a division to compete with Medicare – why would you do it?

It seems to me that the purpose and vision of TAFE has been hijacked by ego, the want of power and chest beating rights (mainly from the top end of the hierarchy) as to which institution is the best; however, it us the public that are left to wear the high cost of this narcissistic behaviour.

A strategic analysis / review of the whole structure of TAFE and a realignment of its obligations to those who fund it (The Tax Payer!!)  needs to be undertaken at both a state and federal level. This is not the type of review that should trot out the same permanent government paid reviewers / consultants but a truly independent knowledgeable reviewer; one that provides a fresh outlook from a social, industry and financially responsible perspective and not the usual party aligned rhetoric view.

Please note I am not advocating for a centralised system of TAFE, just some control exercised over TAFE Institutes, who receive our tax payer dollar, to stop them using it to compete against one another and to use the money given to them by us (the taxpayer) for what we need, not what they want.