NEW funding to support “innovation and structural reform” in the TAFE system is too little too late for Victoria University, according to critics.
The Australian Education Union last week warned that the state government’s promise of $50 million a year over the next four years would fail to undo the damage already inflicted at VU TAFE.
Branch vice-president Greg Barclay said VU courses including sport and fitness, hospitality, business, tourism and boatbuilding had already been cut due to a $32 million funding shortfall, following last year’s cuts totalling more than $300 million statewide.
“Victoria University TAFE is an important part of the community and yet they’ve suffered significant cuts, course closures and have lost 99 staff members,” Mr Barclay said. Many students were missing out on TAFE due to fee hikes, campus closures and the axing of courses.
St Albans author and former TAFE student Amra Pajalic called for the funding to go directly to services where cuts had been made.
Ms Pajalic comes from a disadvantaged background and was the first in her family to graduate from high school. The postgraduate student said she would not have had the skills to study at university had she not gone to TAFE.
“The money taken from Victoria University needs to be returned to the courses that were robbed of it,” she said. “My concern is what sort of courses the government will deem a priority for the funding, and whether students in the west will loose those arty and diverse subjects they have an interest in studying but that still offer so much value.”
Higher Education and Skills Minister Peter Hall said government changes to funding meant more students were enrolling in vocational education and training. “There are now 670,438 government-funded enrolments across Victoria, compared to 426,905 in 2010,” he said.
Western Metropolitan Liberal MP Andrew Elsbury said this included more students in courses tackling skill shortages. “This is evidence of the Coalition government’s commitment to invest in education and support courses that up-skill students for real jobs in the workforce.”
But Western Metropolitan Greens MP Colleen Hartland slammed last week’s funding announcement as a PR stunt that did nothing to help students or the staff who had already lost their jobs.
“The money being allocated to TAFEs is to undertake ‘innovation and structural reforms’ and TAFEs are also being given more power to sell their assets,” she said. “This sounds like code for privatisation and selling our TAFE campuses that have had so much public money invested in them over the years.”
The National Tertiary Education Union agreed the changes could pave the way for privatisation.
State secretary Dr Colin Long said they would not help students who had missed out on TAFE this year.
“It doesn’t reverse the huge fee increases in many courses. It’s just sugar-coating a bitter pill.”
Friends of VU spokesman Paul Adams cast doubts on whether the institution would receive any of the funding.
“To get back to where it was Victoria University would need 50 per cent of the funding on offer over the next three years which just isn’t realistic,” he said. “Victoria University was faced with the biggest cuts in the state and it has been made clear the Liberal party couldn’t care less about people in the west.”
