The Greens support a well funded quality public TAFE system.
Our proven and respected public TAFEs were built up over decades with taxpayer's money and have educated hundreds of thousands of Victorians based on the principle of affordable and accessible training for all.
Chronic under-funding from the previous government has seen Victoria's TAFE system become the lowest funded TAFE system in Australia.
In 2011, the current government removed the funding that allows TAFE institutes to fulfil their student and community service obligations and negotiated staff pay rates. This means that TAFEs will find it difficult or impossible to provide the student welfare and other services that they currently do and that private providers are not required to.
Last year, the government has struck another massive blow to Victoria's public TAFE system. Grants to Victoria's 18 TAFE institutes have been slashed by nearly $300 million.
The cuts to TAFE are completely unnecessary - it has been the 310% growth in enrolments in private Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) that has blown the VET budget, not public TAFEs. This is due to the disastrous market contestability introduced by the previous Labor government.
The Greens are calling on the state government to reverse these devastating cuts to public TAFE funding and prioritise budget spending on VET to the public TAFE system.
Check out Victorian Greens Education spokesperson, Sue Pennicuik's latest speech in parliament, media release, questions raised in parliament and youtube.
Join Greens MP Colleen Hartland's campaign to Save TAFE in the West here.
Click here to view Australian Greens, Higher Education spokesperson, Senator Lee Rhiannon's media releases.
Sign up for updates on the campaign to save TAFE in Victoria here:
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| Bulletin_TAFE_120517.pdf | 377.52 KB |
