Upon his appointment to the role of Special Envoy for Indigenous Affairs in the new Morrison Government, Tony Abbott said he would focus on education ‘as the absolute key to a better future for Indigenous kids and the key to reconciliation’.
The crisis in Australian vocational education is more than a funding, marketisation or system design issue: it is a question of the fitness of our vocational education model for our times.
This article is part two of a two-part series. It focuses on the policy trajectory that created a national training framework, a ‘training market’ and the introduction of VET FEE HELP and looks at how these policies brought TAFE to near ruin.
For far too long, TAFE and the broader VET sector has been neglected by State and Federal Liberal governments. The push to privatise essential education services through contestable funding models, and the rampant and systemic rorting through the VET FEE-HELP loans program has bred a lack of confidence in the system.
The future we want is dependent on us successfully defending public education and particularly, defending public Vocational Education & Training - TAFE.