The announcement of a $200 million shortfall in TAFE funding comes as no surprise to TAFE teachers, students, and their employers, the NSW Teachers Federation said today.
“The shortfall clearly demonstrates the previous government’s experiment of a market-driven funding model for vocational education is an abject failure,” NSW Teachers Federation President, Angelo Gavrielatos said. “This news could not come at a worse time as NSW struggles to reverse skills shortages that are vital to rebuilding NSW after the recent bushfires, floods, pandemic and the current housing crisis.”
Little more than privatisation by stealth, the Perrottet government’s Smart and Skilled funding model puts TAFE NSW in competition with private training colleges for public vocational education funding that effectively flatlined over the 12-year life of the NSW Coalition government.
Despite multiple announcements of record budgets by former Coalition ministers, including John Barilaro and Alister Henskens, the reality is that TAFE NSW has been slowly starved of funding and now only receives the same $1.8 billion in funding it received under the last Labor government in 2011.
Before the NSW election, the Minns government pledged to:
…provide TAFE with the financing stability it needs to flourish, starting with a guarantee of at least 70 per cent of vocational education and training funding to TAFE each year.
“The Minns Government must act to restore recurrent funding to TAFE NSW and put an end to the funding uncertainty of the last 12 years,” Mr Gavrielatos said. “It must abolish the Smart and Skilled funding model.
“TAFE funding must be a priority, it is central to quality of life and future growth of the NSW economy and a skilled workforce.”
