tt_02_winter_2024_4

TAFE TEACHER

Setting migrants up for success with AMEP

Valuing visual arts in Perth

Future skills for TAFE teachers

Budget commitments to Rebuild with TAFE

The Official Journal of the TAFE Division of the Australian Education Union VOL58 • N0.2 • WINTER 2024

Australian TAFE Teacher (ISSN: 0815-3701) is published for the Australian Education Union by Heads & Tales. The magazine is circulated to all TAFE members of the AEU nationally.

Heads & Tales, Ground Level, Building 1, 658 Church St, Richmond 3121

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Editor Kevin Bates

Publisher Fiona Hardie

Account manager Christine Dixon

Art direction & design Dallas Budde & Robert Bertagni

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Circulation: 6,610

Copyright rests with the writers, the AEU and Heads & Tales. No part of this pub lication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the copyright holders. The opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily the official policy of the AEU.

Your national TAFE Council Executive members:

Federal TAFE President

Michelle Purdy (on leave)

Federal TAFE Secretary

Angela Dean

ACT Karen Noble aeuact@aeuact.org.au • 02 6272 7900 • aeuact.org.au

NSW Philip Chadwick mail@nswtf.org.au • 02 9217 2100 • nswtf.org.au

NT Vacant admin@aeunt.org.au • 08 8948 5399 • aeunt.org.au

QLD Dave Terauds qtu@qtu.asn.au •

From the secretary

TAFE remains central to the government delivering on its promises around skills, future work and futures made in Australia.

Angela Dean AEU Federal TAFE Secretary

It’s been a busy year so far, with multiple submissions, launching the 2024 TAFE Photography Competition, campaigning for infrastructure investment and analysing how the Federal Budget impacts TAFE. I also acknowledge colleagues ghting for better remuneration and working conditions around the country as teacher shortages and the enormous success of Fee-Free TAFE impacts workloads and increasing demands on teaching and support sta .

Although there have been many wins for TAFE under the Albanese government, there’s still a long way to go to Rebuild with TAFE. A er decades of cuts, marketisation and casualisation of the workforce, we need a signi cant investment in the workforce and in infrastructure to teach students in t-for-purpose facilities with modern equipment and the latest technology so their education can prepare them for the workforce of today and tomorrow.

The Federal Budget o ered $600 million of new skills investments on top of previous commitments, including a modest increase to the Fee-Free TAFE program and further support for the Australian Apprentices Incentive System.

New announcements such as Future Made in Australia will undoubtedly impact TAFE, as may the Building Women’s Careers program. Glaringly missing was investment in TAFE teachers, support sta and infrastructure.

Government committees and inquiries have also been looking into vocational education and the role of TAFE in stemming skills shortages, supporting just transition and preparing people for the jobs of the future. Some of the submissions we have participated in include:

• Australian Apprenticeships Incentive System

• Developing a blueprint for the VET workforce

• Net Zero Economy Authority Bill 2024

• National Skills Passport Consultation Paper

• Jobs and Skills Australia ECEC Workforce Capacity Study

The Heart of TAFE 2024 TAFE

Photography Competition is underway with entries open until July 10 for currently enrolled TAFE and public dual-sector VET students. Please encourage your students to enter – it’s free and every state and territory winner receives $1000 and a trip to Canberra for National TAFE Day on September 10. At a special exhibition of the nalists’ work in Parliament House, one of the nalists will be announced as the national winner and take home an additional $5000 and a bespoke trophy. The competition is an excellent way to encourage your students to think creatively to a brief and potentially be richly rewarded. The competition showcases the breadth and diversity of everything TAFE o ers students and cements just how valuable TAFE is in local communities around the country.

“Although there have been many wins for TAFE under the Albanese government, there’s still a long way to go to Rebuild with TAFE.”

This issue of TAFE Teacher covers topics familiar, emerging, historical and current. It is particularly TAFE in that aspect, remembering, celebrating and assessing the long history of TAFE in Australia and its relationship with governments in terms of funding, favour and focus, and also exploring what’s to come. It also shares stories of members, TAFE supporters, community partners and the incredible work they do to ensure that every student has the opportunity to be inspired to try new things and succeed.

Importantly, it also captures what TAFE is – an intrinsic part of communities, diverse and inclusive, that skills and prepares us for work and life and o en, many times over.

Budget commitments in skilling Australia

Support

for skills and TAFE sees steady investment from the government in the 2024 Federal Budget,

but more and broader commitment is needed to Rebuild with TAFE.

Article by Jonathon Guy

Whilst the 2024-25 Federal Budget did not feature the big-ticket announcement of hundreds of thousands of Fee-Free TAFE places or billion-dollar TAFE speci c investment like last year, it did include over $600 million of new skills investments on top of existing commitments to the National Skills Agreement signed in the last year, and the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia and the VET Workforce Blueprint Strategy. It also included select measures that will in uence the operation of TAFE and impact the working lives of TAFE teachers into the future.

Future Made in Australia

The headline priority area for skills in the budget is the government’s “Future Made in Australia” package, designed to be a nation building investment in renewable energy and the transition to net zero, at a total of $22.7 billion over the next decade.

A large proportion of the total investment is aimed at incentivising private investment in net zero industries, however, there are still several measures under the Future Made in Australia banner that directly fund the vocational education sector:

• $91 million over ve years from 2023–24 to support the development of the clean energy workforce, including through addressing vocational education and training sector trainer workforce shortages, and funding new and existing training facility upgrades across a range of clean energyoccupations.

“… there are still several measures under the Future Made in Australia banner that directly fund the vocational education sector”

• $55.6 million over four years from 2024–25 to establish the Building Women’s Careers program to drive structural and systemic change in work and training environments. This program will fund partnerships between training providers, community organisations, employers, and unions to improve women’s access to exible, safe and inclusive work and training opportunities in traditionally male-dominated industries of national priority, including clean energy sectors.

However, there is little detail available about how funds from the Building Women’s Careers program will be deployed, beyond the assertion that the program will provide around 10 large grants and several small-scale grants over the next four years.

Announced before the Budget was $88.8 million over three years from 2024–25 to support 20,000 new fee-free training places. This is an expansion of the existing Fee-Free TAFE program with 15,000 places speci cally for courses relevant to the construction sector and delivered through TAFE and industry registered training organisations. It also includes 5,000 Fee-Free places to increase access to pre-apprenticeship programs.

“…$88.8 million over three years … an expansion of the existing FeeFree TAFE program with 15,000 places speci cally for courses relevant to the construction sector and delivered through TAFE.”

FUNDING SNAPSHOT

Future Made in Australia

$91 million

over five years from 2023–24 to support the development of the clean energy workforce

Connecting pathways

The Budget also included funding to implement recommendations from the Australian Universities Accord including $27.7 million over four years from 2024–25 (and an additional $32.8 million from 2028–29 to 2034–35) to develop initiatives that “break down arti cial barriers and harmonise regulatory, governance and quali cation arrangements between the higher education and vocational education and training sectors.” It is expected that this funding will be used to help streamline recognition of prior learning in TAFE and vocational education for students enrolling in university, and to ensure that pathways through vocational education and tertiary education are more clearly de ned and accessible.

There were also a number of smaller skills based measures in the Budget including:

Connecting pathways

$27.7 million over four years from 2024–25 (and an additional $32.8 million from 2028–29 to 2034–35) to develop initiatives that “break down artificial barriers between the higher education and vocational education and training sectors”

$10.6 million over four years from 2024–25 (and $1 million per year ongoing) for the implementation of a reporting solution for the Australian Skills Guarantee

• $10.6 million over four years from 2024–25 (and $1 million per year ongoing) for the implementation of a reporting solution for the Australian Skills Guarantee

• $9.5 million in 2024–25 in additional funding for Jobs and Skills Australia’s continued provision of advice on Australia’s labour market, skills and training needs

• $6.1 million in 2024–25 in additional funding for the National Careers Institute to continue its role in supporting Australians to access targeted careers information

• $2.9 million in 2024–25 in reallocated funding for continued implementation work with the states and territories on the 5-year National Skills Agreement that commenced on 1 January 2024.

Further support for the AAIS

The government has promised $265.1 million over four years to adjust previously scheduled Phase Two Apprenticeship Incentive System payments “to provide further support for apprentices, trainees and their employers in priority occupations.”

• $4.4 million in 2024–25 to support delivering the VET workforce required to meet Australia’s future skills needs. This will include delivering strategic communications to increase the appeal of VET for students, parents and teachers, and extending community awareness of Fee-Free TAFE courses in areas of high skills needs which has ensured strong uptake of Fee-Free TAFE places to date.

• $10.6 million over four years from 2024–25 (and $1.0 million per year ongoing) for the implementation of a reporting solution for the Australian Skills Guarantee

• $9.5 million in 2024–25 in additional funding for Jobs and Skills Australia

• $6.1 million in 2024–25 in additional funding for the

Photography: iStockphoto

National Careers Institute

• $3.9 million over four years from 2024–25 to train TAFE teachers to deliver courses relevant to key professions within the nuclearpowered submarine enterprise.

Further support for the Australian Apprenticeships Incentive System

The government has promised $265.1 million over four years to adjust previously scheduled Phase Two Apprenticeship Incentive System payments “to provide further support for apprentices, trainees and their employers in priority occupations, while the Government undertakes the Strategic Review of the Australian Apprenticeships Incentive System.” These changes are welcome and will increase payments to apprentices from $3,000 to $5,000 and will increase payments to employers from $4,000 to $5,000.

Improved subsidies for apprentices are important, but so is ensuring that apprentices receive a longer term commitment from their employers. The position of the AEU is that this subsidy should therefore be dependent on apprentices having their employment maintained for at least 12 months from the conclusion of their apprenticeship.

Minimal capital investment

A nation building investment in TAFE campuses and equipment was not forthcoming in the Budget. This Budget, centred on the nation building potential of a Future Made in Australia Initiative, lacked a similar bold vision for the future of TAFE campuses and equipment. A new Capital and Equipment Investment Fund, totalling $50 million over three years has been described as part of a coinvestment with states to “to ensure that TAFE facilities are equipped and ready to deliver cutting-edge training in clean energy quali cations and support more students to undertake this training.”

Whilst all capital investment in TAFE is welcome, it was nonetheless disappointing that the Albanese government did not manage greater ambition than the Coalition who had budgeted for a very similarly sized short term $50 million TAFE campus upgrade fund in their 2021-22 Budget. If TAFE is to truly be at the heart of vocational education in Australia, state-of-the-art campuses, equipment and facilities are needed.

“Whilst there is a substantial investment in skills in this Budget as the underpinning of the ‘Future Made in Australia’ plan, the opportunity to recognise and prioritise the importance of TAFE workers in that plan was not taken up.”

Time to turbo charge investment in educators

Although the large investment and commitment to TAFE made by the Albanese government through the National Skills Agreement and the expanded Fee-Free TAFE initiative is very welcome, there are still signi cant concerns among TAFE teachers and support sta on workload, job security, and the level of support required by students accessing the expanded Fee-Free TAFE program.

The AEU’s State of Our TAFE survey showed that students enrolling in FeeFree TAFE have signi cantly higher levels of additional needs including mental health, digital skills, literacy and numeracy and English language needs than the overall TAFE student cohort, and that TAFE institutes are generally not currently resourced to support those needs.

The only Budget measure for more teacher support was “Turbocharge the Teacher, Trainer and Assessor Workforce” which will provide $30 million to the states to support existing initiatives

and new measures to rapidly upskill teachers, trainers and assessors involved in the clean energy, manufacturing and construction sectors. “Rapidly upskilling” the remaining TAFE workforce is not enough –a comprehensive and long-term TAFE workforce strategy is needed to restore the sector.

Missed opportunity

As the AEU’s 2024 State of Our TAFE survey shows, TAFE workers are chronically overburdened to the point where many are planning to leave the sector. A clear majority of workers said that both their working hours and the pace and intensity of their work increased over the last year, and they are working almost a day a week in excess of their contracted hours.

As a result of these pressures, more than two thirds of TAFE workers had considered leaving the sector in the last year, 45 per cent plan to remain for less than ve years and only one quarter plan to spend their entire career in TAFE. Additionally, more than three quarters said that workload has a major impact on the recruitment and retention of TAFE teachers from industry.

The 2024-25 Federal Budget presented the government with an opportunity to provide the support to TAFE students and to help retain TAFE teachers to ensure that the Fee-Free TAFE initiative is a longterm success. It also o ered a chance to regenerate the TAFE workforce following a decade of cuts and attrition due to excessive workload and poor pay. Whilst there is a substantial investment in skills in this Budget as the underpinning of the “Future Made in Australia” plan, the opportunity to recognise and prioritise the importance of TAFE workers in that plan was not taken up.

JONATHON GUY is the AEU Federal Research Officer.

Setting migrants up for success

The AMEP is an opportunity for stability for migrants, yet contestable funding threatens the stability and quality of its delivery.

Article by Merryana Salem

Now in its 75th year, the government-funded Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) has o ered free English lessons to migrants and refugees since 1948. Over the years and multiple governments its delivery, parameters and provision has varied. What hasn’t changed is the dedicated, specialist teachers passionate about helping migrants settle into Australian life.

Valuing AMEP

The AMEP delivers results for students and the economy. Last year, the Department of Home A airs and the Telethon Kids Institute released a longitudinal research study analysing the e ectiveness of the AMEP and found that participation in the AMEP led to labour market outcomes and reduced reliance on income support.

The study’s key ndings included:

• The AMEP improved the English of clients, especially when clients studied for longer periods

• Migrants with higher levels of English:

• Had better labour market outcomes

• Had higher income levels

• Had lower rates of public housing tenancy

• Were less likely to receive income support

• A high rate of eligible migrants (79%) participated in the AMEP

• AMEP participation was associated with improved labour force participation.

Primarily servicing refugees and migrants aged 25-44, but open to any migrant who needs help with English pro ciency, the government is recognising the AMEP’s value, but now the government also needs to recognise the value of AMEP teachers for whom employment, like the delivery of the program itself, varies from state to state.

Constant change

AMEP teachers have seen the priorities, o erings and funding for the program shi with each new contract, between public and private and back again, and even within government departments, most recently from the former Department of Education, Skills and Employment to the present Department of Home A airs.

Despite its federal funding, the contract to o er AMEP varies state-to-state and, since John Howard came to power in 1996, contestability funding frameworks

have been in place. Rather than shoring up the delivery, the opposite has been the case as the tendering process continues to weaken this vital education service for students and led to the mass casualisation of teachers. Contestable funding has seen AMEP delivery focus on price rather quality and without public delivery via TAFE, could limit o erings in rural and regional areas.

In some states such as Victoria there is a confusing array of o erings from the publicly run AMES Australia and select TAFE delivery via the Melbourne AMEP network, which also includes non-public providers alongside TAFE, and a standalone private operator.

Queensland is solely contracted to TAFE, as is SA and distance education (via TAFE NSW). WA is o ered through three TAFE systems and one community provider, and likewise NSW and Tasmania also have a public and a private provider. In both ACT and NT the AMEP is solely delivered privately.

The tendering process not only creates precarity of occupation for some of the nation’s most specialised teachers, it also increases workloads for teachers who cannot plan longer term for the 50,00060,000 students they teach each year.

Currently, TAFE Queensland, along with other public providers, are still awaiting an invitation to tender from the Department of Home A airs. Current contracts now in extension periods have not been updated since the onset of COVID-19.

From contract to recurrent Queensland Teachers Union organiser David Terauds describes the current funding model and its e ects on students as “putting the cart before the horse.” He says with tender inconsistently allocated, private providers promising employment outcomes for migrants may seem appealing to governments, but in reality, and especially problematic for refugees, they are in many cases o ering more uncertainty.

“The AMEP is public education,” Terauds says. “These are foundational skills for a really important part of our community, and it should be delivered by a public provider.”

TAFE Queensland teacher Jenny Trevino, who has taught the AMEP through TAFE since the early 1990s agrees: “When we say the AMEP should be publicly funded, it must be funded recurrently and delivered by public TAFE. You can’t deliver more for less.”

Setting students up for success

Public provision of AMEP has many advantages. Students are guaranteed the consistent access to resources, or quality of learning that TAFE and AMES teachers impart – critical English language and literacy skills needed for living full lives in Australia – and pathways and connections to help them settle into to their new home country.

“AMEP being delivered by TAFE also means that students are then well-placed to access further TAFE courses and pathways into future employment and education,” says Trevino. “TAFE provides a pathway for AMEP students beyond simply getting a job.”

She says in TAFE settings, quali ed teachers deliver the program, teachers who are specially trained to support students who may have complexities such as trauma, insecurity and cultural responsibilities in addition to work, family and settling into to a new country.

“In addition to English pro ciency, people enrolled in the AMEP at TAFE are taught about systems, culture, and the history - that’s what settlement education is,” says Trevino. “This includes connecting them to community support organisations for trauma counselling and housing, medical and family support services.”

Putting students first Trevino says in addition to AMEP being delivered through TAFE, funding also needs to be recurrent and more exible to allow teachers and providers to best support their students.

“In a continuous recurrent model, resources would be built up, teachers would be in secure employment, and socio-cultural and linguistic research into better educational methods could also be conducted,” she says.

She points to legislative change that has signi cantly bene ted immigrant groups. In April 2021, the government amended legislation that removed a 510-hour cap on teaching hours and raised the eligibility threshold and exit point from the program from functional to vocational English and removed the time limit to complete the program.

“These reforms particularly bene ted students who have had little or no formal education previously, some of whom are not literate int their rst language,” she says. “With highly quali ed and experienced AMEP

Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) Impact Evaluation Project

The 2022 study of Employment outcomes of AMEP clients analysed linked AMEP–ATO Payment Summary data and found:

• By analysing the labour market outcomes of 177,000 unique AMEP clients over the course of six years, this paper documents the pattern of labour market outcomes by client characteristics and demonstrates how that relationship evolves during the study period.

• The rate of labour force participation increased substantially from the first to the second year of AMEP participation, from 51% to 69% for males and from 46% to 63% for females, before flattening out.

• Total annual wages for AMEP participants began to increase from one year after their AMEP program exit, and steadily increased out to 6-years post- AMEP.

AMEP clients with better initial English proficiency had better labour market outcomes

• Overall, AMEP clients improved their labour force participation rates and total income, compared with their status at program entry.

The AMEP Impact Evaluation Project began as a collaborative research initiative between the Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE) and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families Over the Life Course (the Life Course Centre) in July 2019. Jurisdiction over the AMEP subsequently moved from DESE to the Department of Home A airs, making Home A airs custodians of the AMEP data and the key stakeholder in the AMEP Impact Evaluation Project. This research paper has been co-funded by the Australian Government in partnership with the Life Course Centre.

teachers, these people now have a fair chance of a pathways to reasonable employment, to become more skilled workers andto become more involved in their communities.”

Solid jobs

Without recurrent funding, AMEP teachers typically have uncertain and casualised employment. Trevino says some TAFE systems like hers in Queensland have successfully made AMEP teachers permanent, but others remain contract employees themselves in precarious employment.

Daphne Budisavljevic, who teaches the AMEP at Melbourne Polytechnic, explains that many employers are reluctant to hire ongoing and permanent AMEP teachers due to competitive tendering funding models every few years: “The di culty for us is that we ful l all the duties and obligations of an ongoing teacher. All of it is the same. Yet we don’t know if we’re going to be there when the contract expires.”

Despite this, AMEP teachers prioritise doing the best for their students.

“As usual, teachers save the day,” says Budisavljevic, brightly. “We’re the bu er between all of this and what the student really needs. We work as hard as we can to ensure the student gets the teacher the student needs.”

Paying it forward

Budisavljevic, herself a migrant from Chile has nothing but praise for the AMEP and believes current issues with AMEP could be solved with recurrent funding.

“The AMEP is a wonderful program… I just wish it was funded properly,” she says.

Budisavljevic is hopeful that in recognition of the skills shortage and the incredible value that the AMEP o ers that the Albanese government can do more, such as providing TAFE with recurrent AMEP funding. With government data showing 90 per cent ofAMEP students have exited the program within three years and with higher English pro ciency, it’s time to recognise and celebrate AMEP teachers and fund public providers of AMEP recurrently.

MERRYANA SALEM is a proud Lebanese-Wonnarua author and freelance culture critic.

Kangan’s golden anniversary

Discourses of disadvantage from Whitlam to Albanese to justify government enthusiasm for vocational education.

Article by Dr Don Zoellner

The Whitlam Government’s re-shaping of Australian society was not immediately apparent to many educators in 1974, particularly Labor’s strong focus on exerting increased policy and funding in uence over all levels of education. This extension included commissioning the labour market specialist Myer Kangan and 10 other panel members to report on the needs of technical and further education from a national perspective. The rst volume of their ndings was released in April 1974 and is generally credited with creating the TAFE sector.

The Kangan Review spent considerable e ort in describing the barriers to entry into technical and further education. As a result, it recommended a range of policy and funding responses to increase

citizens’ opportunities to participate in a publicly funded, recurrent and vocationally oriented system of education that was equitable in its treatment of disadvantaged groups. The Kangan Review found that “the principle of universal access to TAFE is fundamental to Australia’s social and economic development” and “universal access is a matter of equity”. For the states to receive federal government funding for their TAFE institutions, they had to agree to accept tied grants to be used for several speci c purposes including “the development of means to reduce barriers and impediments to access to TAFE”. Equal opportunity, disadvantage, access to education and training, equity and their links to the country’s socioeconomic development were each comprehensively and conceptually developed in the Kangan Report. This work provided the building blocks and rationale for the Commonwealth government to overcome its historical

reluctance to allocate policymaking resources and public monies to support state-based educational activities and expand its use of the powers to legislate for bene ts for students that were granted nearly 30 years earlier through the social security constitutional amendment.

This paper looks at how successive federal governments of di erent political persuasions stacked, knocked down, rearranged, sometimes rede ned and rebuilt these 50-year-old policy components that are still being used to describe and understand those groups of people that are deemed to be disadvantaged. By framing the problem of disadvantage in a very speci c way, it became bureaucratically inevitable that these assemblages of citizens were deemed suitable to have their station in life improved by participating in vocational education.

Somewhat remarkably, these building blocks have not changed substantially over the past half century. However, the way they have been put together and what they are represented to be has varied over time, demonstrating a capacity to describe contemporary social and economic disadvantage that has proven to be remarkably resilient. It is timely that the golden anniversary of the seminal Kangan Review of TAFE is marked by the nal report of the Universities Accord Panel. The accord process also mobilised these traditional policy elements to cast a cursory glance

at TAFE and vocational education and training (VET), albeit from the perspective of public universities.

Kangan’s vision for recurrent universal access to publicly funded technical and further education colleges and their professional education workforce has not been realised, nor has the late 1980s John Dawkins-era goal of having proportions of selected equity cohorts increased to population parity in higher education institutions.

The making up of the disadvantaged categories has signi cant consequences for the work of educators, particularly when they become advocates for those groups deemed to be disadvantaged.

Educators have economically and politically been assigned the role of facilitating disadvantaged groups on their socio-economic journey from where they are to where they should be. This makes it important for educators to understand how these groups were created and, more signi cantly, which knowledges have been mobilised to make up the notion of disadvantage. Equally, identifying whose ideas and world views have been excluded in the process of de ning and maintaining the contemporary understanding of disadvantage and potential remedies helps to explain how certain programs of improvement have come into being and how teaching and learning are to be conducted.

In recommending this shorter list of target equity cohorts, the Universities

(1) Goozee, Gillian. 2001. The development of TAFE in Australia. Third ed. Leabrook: National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

(2) Dawkins, John. 1989. “Opening statement: education and the economy in a changing society.” In Education and the economy in a changing society, 9-14. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“Somewhat remarkably, these building blocks have not changed substantially over the past half century.”

Accord panel attributed their decision to the national statistical data sets which indicate that being from a non-English speaking background does not correlate with systematic disadvantage in higher education and that the de nition of non-traditional areas of study was too broad to quantify the disadvantages experienced by women. Both groups have consequently been excluded from the list of targeted equity cohorts in these two most recent reviews into higher education equity due to lack of data.

Australia has a discourse of disadvantage that focuses attention on the things that a particular category of citizens lacks while simultaneously masking what Carol Bacchi in Analysing Policy: what’s the problem represented to be? calls the “social advantages accrued

by other groups”. She writes that the dominant understanding of equality in Australia is represented “as a matter of access to opportunities. The emphasis on choices and opportunities produces life chances as more or less within an individual’s control”. In a demonstration of the in uence (and longevity) a single discourse can have over public policy, we have already seen that these same beliefs about individual choice and responsibility that lay at the heart of the early 20th century Australian wageearners’ welfare state also supported the views of those who have promoted recurrent education and the economic signi cance of lifelong learning from the 1970s onwards.

In the Australian context these distinctive categories that inhabit the margins of the labour market and society have become labelled as disadvantaged or, more recently, equity groups. Their identities make them agreeable to government interventions into their lives through the development of both supportive and punitive programs of improvement that rely upon a continual supply of data.

Half a century a er TAFE was created and then replaced by the national training system’s VET quasimarkets, none of the original equity/ disadvantaged groups have yet to become considered as advantaged, with the sometimes exception of women’s increased labour market participation, albeit in lower paid occupations.

“ …there has never been enough research data created and collected to support the government interventions into the lives of those that have been deemed to be disadvantaged.”

This brings us back to the initial question – why would policymakers and advocacy bodies continue to encourage experts to produce evermore VET research that repeatedly informs politicians, industry and the general public that these familiar target groups continue to fare badly in socioeconomic terms, remain disconnected from the labour market and are under-represented and/ or havelower levels of participation in tertiary education?

One rather dramatic example of the arbitrary nature, as opposed to the truth of the matter, can be observed in how levels of literacy and numeracy have been measured in Australia and then used to inform government policy and programmes. The creation of an identity of persons that lack foundation skills creates a group persona that is here but needs to get to there.

Aligned to the Dawkins-era problematisation disadvantage, Jobs and Skills Australia currently endorses the commonly quoted research [which] shows almost three million Australians lack basic literacy or numeracy skills, or both that has been extracted from the 2011/12 OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey. However, the results of the two previous statistical analyses that had informed government adult literacy and numeracy policy, the National Foundation Skills Strategy for Adults and the 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey have quietly been removed from the discourses of disadvantage. Both had reported that outcomes remained largely unchanged from the results in 1996 which found that 44 per cent of Australia’s working age population (around six million people) have literacy levels below Level 3; that is the level needed to meet complex demands of work and life in modern economies. These ndings were the basis for public policies and funded programs developed by governments

over two decades that aimed to address the perceived problems of poor literacy, numeracy and digital skills.

Educators could have been the subject of hearty congratulations for what could have been considered to be a remarkable decade-long policy success by halving the number of Australians without the requisite foundation skills in intervening years. However, for policy purposes this statistic has been ignored by those who categorise people because they know how the sausage is made, so to speak.

Equality of opportunity or equity?

At this point it is worth repeating that over the past 50 years none of the TAFE/ VET disadvantaged groups or the higher education equity groups have been calculated to have improved or achieved parity in their socio-economic position since their identi cation and the multiple government interventions into their lives through education and training programs.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the political discourse and popular understanding of equality of educational opportunity was mostly problematised in terms of access to careers and upward social mobility. This representation tted well with popular aspirations and justi ed large increases in public funding. However, by the mid-1970s equality of educational opportunity policies had not demonstrated the anticipated rewards for many people. This re ected the hard reality that employment options for graduates can become limited and are determined by the labour market rather than by educational outcomes. As early as 1975 Peter Karmel had envisaged the possibility of structural changes to the labour market where the increasing availability of graduates would displace the employment of younger, less quali ed persons. The net e ect of increased participation and higher level

quali cations would not be re ected in upwards socio-economic mobility, rather an individual would require more advanced quali cations to maintain their current position. This trend is increasingly evident in contemporary labour markets where the higher education graduate salary premium has ‘withered’ and, when combined with the accumulated debt from taking out student loans, makes an economic case for more and higher quali cations economically doubtful for possibly 20 per cent of existing university students.

Status

Simon Marginson in 2011’s Equity, Status and Freedom: a note on higher education proposes that the equitable provision of social opportunity is generally expected to be a central function of modern education systems and that two notions of equity can be found Australian higher education policies and programs – equity as fairness and equity as inclusion. The discourses that support either of these versions of equity are missing a profoundly important element because neither acknowledges the role of universities in the production of social status. Conceiving of equity as fairness, particularly fair competition at the point of entry into undergraduate degrees, neglects the fact that individual agents, the central actors in marketised tertiary education provision, have unequal capacity to compete.

While the capacity to confer higher social and economic status is not peculiar to Australian universities, it is integral to their genetic composition. The signi cance of protecting and conferring status in their self-de ned role as guardians of intellectual standards and integrity can be found in rst federal national review of universities, the Murray Report which in 1957 writes: “Universities should certainly seek to avoid responsibility for groups of students who have not reached

matriculation level” and arrangements should be made “for such groups of students as are below the necessary academic level to be taught elsewhere”.

In addition, the protection of the university sector’s perceived standing and its ability to confer status on those individuals that experience success in the market exchange mechanisms that had been imposed by Dawkins on tertiary education likely explains why the TAFE/VET sector continues to be held responsible for improving the seven or eight disadvantaged groups that have been identi ed when compared to the four that have become the contemporary target cohorts for higher education. As described in the Murray Report, TAFE and VET provide the “elsewhere” venues for those deemed to not meet the admissions requirements set by each university.

Certainly, the Universities Accord nal report does not use the word status to describe universities in the sense of socio-economic standing in society but does note that governments are working to “improve the overall status and perceptions of VET”.

Implications for educators

Educators are invited to consider the ramifications of what is the problem represented to be. The national policy logic understands low socio-economic outcomes are the result of individuals irrationally choosing not to participate in the labour market. Representing the problem in this manner facilitates an easy and uncritical extrapolation that poverty and disadvantage can be equated with a lack of access to education, training and qualifications.

It is useful to return to what the Kangan Report considered to be important in providing Australian residents with universal access to recurrent education at TAFE institutions and community colleges in non-urban areas. As opposed to Kangan’s vision of a professionalised group of teachers in possession of related educational and occupational knowledges being in control of the process of veridiction of TAFE, Australian governments have followed the global educational reform movement and embraced VET’s marketbased exchange mechanisms that prefer the expert holders of statistical and

economic knowledges in determining what is true from their worldview.

Conclusion

Quite simply, there has never been enough research data created and collected to support the government interventions into the lives of those that have been deemed to be disadvantaged. This is regardless of whether equity of access or equality of opportunity were being used to develop the interventions into the lives of particular groups of citizens.

Successive federal governments justi ed their initial TAFE funding provision to the states (and eventually territories) on their desire to improve the socio-economic standing and employment of disadvantaged groups that have been perceived to cause reduced national economic activity and output. Half a century later, this reasoning remains rmly in place and explains the Australian Government’s expanded role in not only the provision of funding, but also in making major policy decisions, regulating providers and training products, assisting students with subsidies/loans and even intermittently oating the idea of the states and territories referring all TAFE/VET matters to the Commonwealth.

Arguably, the most striking feature of the tertiary education policy terrain is that not much has really changed despite the numerous reviews, funding changes, organisational restructuring, increased regulatory interventions and the everincreasing demand for and collection of vast amounts of data and statistics. The single most signi cant policy change was introduced by the Hawke/Keating Labor government when it declared Whitlam’s policies promoting universal equality of educational opportunity to be a failure and replaced them with policies designed to give e ect to equity of access to institutions and quali cations in a market-exchange environment.

It has been the intention of this paper to describe how discourses of disadvantage, built upon the privileged knowledges of economics and statistics, are used to make up groups of people by representing problems in a very limited range of ways that are wellknown by policymakers. Educators, whose unprivileged professional knowledges of pedagogy and andragogy

have been deleted from policymaking processes, are invited to explore the process of veridiction that leads to speci c policy and program outcomes by asking the following questions in order to open broader discussions about the possibilities of actually changing the lives of the disadvantaged groups through increased labour market participation and preparing citizens for participation in the Australian democracy that the Kangan Review hoped to improve ve decades ago.

• Under what circumstances and in whose worldview are groups determined to be disadvantaged?

• Is that how the disadvantaged see themselves?

• How does your professional practice as an educator t into the making up of disadvantaged people and how they are problematised?

• How are programs of improvement conceived and then implemented?

• Why are higher education providers expected to enrol a proportion of a few disadvantaged groups while TAFE/VET remains tied to the original Kangan visions of universal access and recurrent learning?

Since the Kangan Report successive federal governments have increasingly embraced vocational and technical education as a mechanism to improve national economic fortunes and address one measure of socio-economic disadvantage de ned solely by an individual’s relationship with the labour market. Rather than having Kangan’s highly trained professional educators who teach the specialised understandings of TAFE to achieve a population-wide improvement in skills and contextualised knowledge, the role of contemporary VET workers has frequently been simplistically reduced. They are considered to be interchangeable agents who are responsible for ensuring that enrolled students, especially the disadvantaged, will interact with a social actor who will take all of them from here to somewhere else.

This is an edited extract from Dr Zoellner’s Keynote address to the 2024 Australian Education Union National TAFE Council Annual General Meeting. Dr Don Zoellner is a university fellow at the Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University.

Future skills for educators

How will TAFE teachers navigate virtual and hybrid settings alongside face-to-face classrooms while teaching skills for tomorrow’s workforce?

Article by Mel Campbell

Contemplating the future can be daunting when you’re at out with day-today teaching, assessment, preparation, and admin. In addition to keeping up with technological and organisational shi s inyour eld and nding time to master new ed-tech tools and teaching modalities, where and how do you nd the time to delve into future skills?

The good news is you’re already using future skills.

“VET educators are practical and passionate, and just incredibly studentfocused – this is why they do what they do,” says Alison Wall, chief of sta at the Future Skills Organisation (FSO), a Jobs and Skills Council funded by the Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to help grow Australia’s talent pool in the nance, technology and business industries.

Wall praises the “bespoke delivery” she sees TAFE teachers o ering their students. “Being student-centric means that you are being a ‘translator’ between what industry wants and creating the right condition for students to learn,” she says.

You’re versatile, too: “We quite o en hear stories about educators adapting di erent delivery styles or di erent tools, because we know that in a classroom typically you have a complete range of learners.”

So, how will tomorrow’s TAFE teachers navigate virtual and hybrid settings alongside face-to-face classrooms, workshops and studios? What capabilities should you prioritise in your professional development? And what are some resources to look for?

Cultivate evergreen skills

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s Education 2030 project identi es three “transformative competencies” that future students will need: “creating new value”; “reconciling tensions and dilemmas” and “taking responsibility”. FSO’s research also shows “employers are looking for skills that complement the collaboration between human and technology,” says Wall.

These “evergreen skills” – sometimes called ‘so skills’ – include time management, spoken communication, empathy, negotiation and problemsolving, self-direction, leadership and teamwork. For Wall, “contextualisation

is the key,” because the same skills look di erent across di erent industries and in di erent contexts, meaning teachers can and should model them for their industry.

Another evergreen skill for educators “is the idea of resilience and being able to be exible in change,” says education professional development consultant Ren Everett.

A passionate advocate for inclusive and accessible learning, especially for historically marginalised people, Everett says by cultivating resilience, teachers can keep pace with “social changes that require people to reorganise their thinking processes rapidly and constantly.”

Universal design for learning

But if you do feel overwhelmed, Everett says, that’s likely because teaching imposes a heavy cognitive load, which is “all of the things that you’re carrying in your brain that are using up space in your working memory.”

VET students also struggle with cognitive load. They might be neurodivergent, from culturally marginalised backgrounds, juggling work and family, returning to study, or learning in an additional language. Everett says teachers can lighten everyone’s cognitive

“My favourite metaphor at the moment is that a ramp is just lots of tiny little steps lined up against each other,” Everett says. “Somebody who uses a wheelchair can get up a ramp. Somebody who doesn’t need a wheelchair might get up there quicker, but it’s the same thing, right? So that’s what I’m talking about: building the tiny little steps for people to get there.”

Everett says UDL can be as simple as a Google or Word document where the steps are clearly laid out or multidirectional, hyperlinked ‘learning maps’ that empower students to choose their own learning pathways, activities and tasks.

The role of generative AI

Because TAFE has historically trained students to use tools of the trade, discussions on future-proo ng teaching has focused on ashy new ed-tech –especially generative AI (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Copilot.

“We would encourage educators to lean in to GenAI. It’s not going to go away,” says Wall. “Teachers should be allowing students to learn, use, and learn from their use with AI, because it’s going to be at the workplace.”

Wall recommends it as a “thought-

“Teachers should be allowing students to learn, use, and learn from their use with AI, because it’s going to be at the workplace.”

load by adopting universal design for learning (UDL).

“Universal design for learning is sometimes called ‘backwards by design’,” he explains. “It says, ‘This is what I want them to be able to do at the end,’ and then I work backwards through the steps.”

For example, using micro-learning principles for each step: a short burst of ve to 10 minutes that doesn’t tax students’ executive function and is rewarding to complete. This builds momentum to keep learning, at each student’s own pace.

starter” when beginning a task, as “it allows you to leapfrog faster into a concept or an idea.” Importantly, though, future-focused educators are “actually helping students to make good decisions about the information they’re being given,” says Wall. Encourage critical re ection: “What did you think about that? What does it mean?”

Assessment processes, too, must adapt to GenAI. Wall suggests that to validate a student’s understanding and evidence, “back up a piece of written work with some oral questioning: ‘Why do you

Upskilling

think that? What would happen in a di erent scenario?’”

Everett’s priority is to “use technology to li people up, not atten them to t in the same cookie-cutter as everyone else.” He suggests teachers can use AI to quickly and easily adapt activities and assignments to meet students’ diverse needs and interests, building a collection of ways to frame the same material.

“Every time I present an activity, I present it in more than one way,” he explains. AI can reduce teachers’ cognitive load by “having those options ready to go” for anyone struggling to get started.

Bridging virtual and physical worlds

COVID forced education online; and asynchronous remote learning remains popular because students nd it convenient and accessible. Virtual-reality tools, well designed and implemented, also let beginners safely learn dangerous techniques such as welding without wasting materials, or provide realistic simulated environments to practise workplace health and safety risk assessments.

But learners will always need expert supervisors to provide useful feedback.

“The technology’s an augmentation; it’s not a replacement,” says Wall. For the best of both worlds, “the hybrid model is exactly where we need to go.”

Place-based education o ers a source of immersive experiences that can spark active learning. Drones can map physical spaces; scavenger hunts can boost detailperception and teamwork, among other ‘evergreen’, workplace-ready skills. So can local service projects including community cafés, clinics, plant nurseries, hair salons, repair workshops or digital literacy classes.

Digital personalised learning (DPL), meanwhile, combines the strengths of machine learning and human supervision into an adaptive learning management system (LMS) that responds dynamically to students’ interactions by o ering them pathways that suit their learning styles.

By automating routine task instruction, deadline reminders and feedback on students’ strengths and weaknesses, DPL systems free up teachers to o er more socio-emotional support. Human educators notice realworld pressures on students that an AI

“In great classrooms you’re seeing peer-to-peer learning, or the teacher and learner becomes reversed.”

can’t – work/life balance, physical and mental illness, or cultural safety issues.

The LMS can also show teachers things they might not have noticed about their students or their own teaching. DPL platforms o en include analytics dashboards that visualise real-time data on which parts of the course are most used, and which students might need extra help – and with what.

Building communities of practice

Face-to-face teaching, however, remains crucial to help students learn from each other.

“In great classrooms you’re seeing peer-to-peer learning, or the teacher and learner becomes reversed,” Wall says.

The diversity of TAFE students also means for example, that older learners

can model for their younger peers those evergreen interpersonal skills “that young people won’t necessarily have had a chance to experience,” says Wall.

Teachers, too, learn from a community of practice. Which is why the Future Skills Organisation hosts an online community network connecting educators with industry stakeholders. “It allows VET educators to understand the changes that are coming, so they’ve got a little bit of a head start,” Wall explains.

The same principles that work for students also guide teachers’ professional development, Everett says: “You talk to each other, and that’s where learning tends to happen.”

MEL CAMPBELL is a Naarm based writer and editor.

Crossing the digital divide: Strategies for using GenAI in diverse classrooms

As Generative AI (GenAI) and other digital tools become more prevalent in education, it is vital for teachers to develop strategies that support all students in developing the digital literacy skills they need to succeed.

What is Generative AI?

Article by Leon Furze

Alongside all the traditional challenges in the education sector, TAFE teachers now face the trial of delivering curriculum to students with vastly di erent levels of digital literacy. From learners who have grown up with technology to those who have limited access to devices and the internet at home, the digital divide can present signi cant barriers to learning.

Generative Arti cial Intelligence (GenAI) is a form of machine learning which trains on large collections of data to learn the rules of that data, and generate novel content. By now, most teachers have heard of or used ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot built on its GPT

Large Language Model (LLM). A LLM is just one form of GenAI: others, such as image generation models, music, and even video generation are now widely available. These technologies have been both hailed as saviours of education engagement and delivery and vili ed as

“cheating tools” that will lead to a loss of critical and creative skills. As with all digital technologies, the truth is likely somewhere in between.

The potential of AI in supporting literacy

While no technology can “revolutionise education”, GenAI has the potential to support literacy (both traditional and digital) by providing a range of assistive technologies and tools that can bene t learners at various levels. For example, text-to-speech and speech-to-text technologies can be particularly helpful

VET Development Centre

for students with learning disabilities or those who struggle with reading and writing. By converting written text into spoken words and vice versa, these tools can help students engage with content more e ectively and express their ideas in alternative ways.

Multimodal GenAI, which encompasses image, audio, and video generation, can also lower barriers to entry for certain applications. AIpowered image generation tools can assist students in creating visual aids and illustrations to accompany their writing, even if they lack advanced artistic skills. Similarly, audio and video generation technology can enable students to create multimedia presentations and projects more easily, without the need for extensive training in complex so ware.

GenAI also has the potential to enhance creativity and engagement in literacy practices by providing students with new tools for experimentation and self-expression. AI-powered writing assistants, such as ChatGPT, can o er suggestions for vocabulary, sentence structure, and narrative devices, encouraging beginning writers to explore di erent writing styles and techniques. These tools can provide immediate feedback and guidance, helping students re ne their skills and gain con dence in their writing abilities.

Addressing the challenges and ethical implications

While the potential bene ts of GenAI in literacy education are signi cant, it is essential to recognise and address the challenges and ethical implications that come with the widespread adoption of these technologies. One major concern is the potential for AI systems to perpetuate and amplify existing biases and inequalities. If the data used to train AI algorithms contains historical biases or underrepresentation of certain groups, the resulting AI-generated content may re ect and reinforce those biases. For example, if an AI writing assistant is trained primarily on texts written by a narrow demographic, it may generate suggestions that favour certain language patterns or perspectives, potentially marginalising other voices, and experiences.

So-called “algorithmic discrimination” can even exacerbate inequalities in literacy education by providing uneven access and representation across various platforms. Students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds or underserved communities may have

STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING DIGITAL LITERACY

1 Assess students’ digital literacy levels: To e ectively support students with varying levels of digital literacy, TAFE teachers should begin by assessing their students’ existing skills and access to technology. This can be done through surveys, discussions, or practical tasks that reveal students’ familiarity with various digital tools and platforms.

2 Provide di erentiated instruction and support: Based on the assessment of students’ digital literacy levels, teachers can di erentiate their instruction to meet the needs of individual learners.

3 Integrate digital literacy skills into curriculum: Rather than treating digital literacy as a separate subject, teachers can integrate these skills into their existing curriculum. For example, in a writing course, teachers can guide students in using AI-powered writing assistants to generate ideas, improve sentence structure, and expand their vocabulary.

4 Encourage critical thinking and responsible use: As students engage with AI and other digital tools, it is essential for teachers to cultivate critical thinking skills and promote responsible use of technology.

5 Collaborate with colleagues and seek professional development: To e ectively manage digital literacy in diverse classrooms, TAFE teachers should collaborate with their colleagues and actively seek professional development opportunities.

limited access to the devices, internet connectivity, and digital literacy skills necessary to fully bene t from AI technologies. This digital divide can widen achievement gaps and perpetuate cycles of inequality.

To address these challenges, educators and policymakers must work together to develop guidelines and policies for the responsible development and deployment of AI technologies in education. This includes establishing standards for diverse and representative training data, implementing transparency and accountability measures, and creating mechanisms to identify and rectify biases or errors. E orts must also be made to ensure equitable access to AI tools and resources, such as providing subsidised devices and internet connectivity to disadvantaged students and o ering digital literacy training for educators and learners alike.

Rethinking assessment for GenAI

As AI tools become more prevalent in education, teachers must also adapt their assessment practices to ensure that students are demonstrating their own learning and skills. Traditional written exams and essays may no longer be su cient in an age where AI-powered writing assistants can generate humanlike text. Instead, teachers can employ a range of assessment strategies that emphasise practical application, critical thinking, and authentic performance. In vocational education settings, lecturers might have an advantage over their schools counterparts. Teachers can use observation checklists to assess students’ ability to apply digital skills in real-world scenarios. Role-plays and simulations can provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their digital problem-solving abilities in realistic contexts. Workplace activities and employer reports can o er valuable insights into students’ digital competencies and areas for improvement: many of these assessments are very “AI proof” since they rely on real, applicable skills not easily replicated by GenAI.

Teachers can also use the AI Assessment Scale (AIAS), developed by Perkins, Roe, Macvaugh and Furze , (see table 1), as a framework for designing assessments that transparently communicate how AI can or cannot be used in a given task. By providing clear guidelines and expectations for the appropriate use of AI tools, teachers can help students develop the skills and ethical judgement needed to use these technologies responsibly in their future careers.

The AIAS is split across four levels from “no AI” to “full AI”, and clearly articulates how students can and cannot use AI in a given task.

1

2

3 AI-ASSISTED EDITING

4 AICOMPLETION, HUMAN EVALUATION

5 FULL AI

Perkins, M., Furze, L., Roe, J., & MacVaugh, J. (2024). The Artificial Intelligence Assessment Scale (AIAS): A Framework for Ethical Integration of Generative AI in Educational Assessment. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 21(06). https://doi.org/10.53761/q3azde36

The assessment is completed entirely without AI assistance. This level ensures that students rely solely on their knowledge, understanding and skills. AI must not be used at any point during the assessment.

AI can be used in the assessment for brainstorming, creating structures and generating ideas for improving work. No AI content is allowed in the final submission.

AI can be used to make improvements to the clarity or quality of student created work to improve the fi nal output, but no new content can be created using AI. AI can be used, but your original work with no AI content must be provided in an appendix.

AI is used to cmplete certain elements of the task, with students provisind discussion or commentary on the AIgenerated content. This level requires critical engagment with AI generated content and evaluating it’s output. You will use AI to complete specifi ed tasks in your assessment. Any AI created content must be cited.

AI should be used as a ‘co-pilot’ in order to meet the requirements of the assessment allowing for a collaborative approach with AI and enhancing creativity. You may use AI throughout your assessment to support your own work and do not have to specify which content is AI generated.

Managing digital literacy in diverse TAFE classrooms is a complex challenge that requires a proactive, student-centred approach. By assessing students’ digital literacy levels, providing di erentiated

instruction and support, integrating digital skills into the curriculum, fostering critical thinking and responsible use, and collaborating with colleagues, teachers can create inclusive

learning environments that empower all students to succeed in the digital age. While the ethical implications and potential biases of AI technologies must be carefully considered and addressed, the considered use of these tools can o er bene ts for literacy education. By providing assistive technologies, lowering barriers to entry for creative technologies, and augmenting creativity and engagement, AI has the potential to support the development of digital literacy skills in ways that are accessible and meaningful for a wide range of learners.

Ultimately, the goal is not to replace human teachers with GenAI, but to equip educators with the knowledge, skills, and strategies they need to make the most of the potential for inclusive and e ective literacy instruction.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

LEON FURZE is a writer for the VET Development Centre (VDC). VDC prides itself on delivering quality, professional learning and relevant programs for the vocational education workforce across Australia.

Recognising and valuing art

Art has been taught at TAFE and its predecessor Perth Technical School in Western Australia for 125 years and remains as essential for the local community today as when it began.

Article by Diana Ward

North Metropolitan TAFE is unique in its o ering of Certi cates II, III, IV, Diploma and Advanced Diploma in Visual Arts in purpose-built facilities in the heart of Perth’s cultural precinct Northbridge. O ering quali cations across practices such as painting and drawing, sculpture, printmaking, jewellery, photography, ceramics and more, the visual arts o erings are delivered with TAFE’s signature exible pathways and support structures standing alongside dedicated studio spaces for diploma and advanced diploma students.

Principal lecturer for Art and Design, Dallas Perry is equally a teacher, an artist and a collaborator, having learnt early in her career the bene ts of networking and working with others. She balances teaching and nurturing the next generation of artists while also practicingher own art, o en exhibiting side-by-side with former and currentstudents.

“I specialise in drawing, printmaking and studio practice, which is quite broad, developing projects in a more organic way,” she says. “We walk alongside our students, mentor our students, work with them with a hands-on approach across the scope of facilities from printmaking, to sculpture, to ceramics, photography

and just really showing that there is elasticity between them all and there is no boundary.”

She says this contemporary approach to being an artist in that you can work across a variety of mediums and styles as opposed to being specialist in one builds sustainability of practice. “That’s where the agility and resilience comes in as well,” she says.

“As lecturers we share our own art practice with our students, but we also look at contemporary trends so that can nurture our students to explore these.”

As an artist there are limited pathways to make a living and the need to have income usually means artists need to also have other jobs.

PICTURED Art building entrance, North Metropolitan TAFE in Western Australia; (opposite) Pixel Pancho’s mural Self-protection of the Immigrant in Ourself at North Metropolitan TAFE.

For TAFE students this means their lecturers are not only passionate about helping them in their practice, but also giving them practical truths about how to work as an artist when you also need to provide for yourself.

“It’s important to be honest with your students about it, there’s never going to be equal balance you know, there’s never equal portions allocated in your life… but to learn how to seek those opportunities and being an artist is not just about making art, it’s about being a good communicator, it’s about having a good CV, it’s about having good time management skills, being able to write astatement,” she says.

“We have a lot of paid artist residencies across the state and cultural administration jobs that our students are very competitive applicants for,” she says, adding that there are also strong industry opportunities for jewellery designers to take on manufacturing jobs within that industry in WA.

Hands-on learning

Perry says the advantage of TAFE education is the program’s hands-on focus and all the lecturers are industry current and immersed in industry, o en exhibiting alongside each other.

“A really important thing in all of my classes is to talk about what those opportunities around you are and believe in your students that they can achieve them,” she says. “That’s a big thing, a lot of students come to us and they don’t have someone that believes in them or they don’t believe in themselves but if you’re showing them that encouragement and you can do this you know and let me help you do this, like let’s write an honest statement, let’s work out how we’re going to frame your work or those sort of stepping stones into industry even if it’s just a community art award and I’ll be like well I’ve entered in it, you could exhibit alongside me, let’s try, let’s try together.”

A big fan of community awards, Perry is a regular exhibitor: “I was just in the Minnawarra Art Awards in Armadale and one of my ex-students was right next to me exhibiting one of his photographs … that’s a beautiful moment.”

“I really do love community art awards and regional art awards. I am in an artists’ group with some colleagues – we’ve all either studied or worked at TAFE and we exhibit together annually. It’s about that sort of strength in what we do – we’re all women as well so it’s about empowering women and showing that we can balance home

“This TAFE really is an art environment, there is art everywhere … it’s an inspiring environment.”

“It’s about the swings and roundabouts of practice,” she says. “It’s about showing up and it’s about keeping on going because if you don’t keep going in some capacity then it does drop away, and I think it’s a very meaningful part of my life to keep going.”

Making connections

Perry’s journey from artist to teacher wasn’t simple – like everything she does, she put a lot of thought and work into it. She le her country town to study art at university and then hoped to go on to a teaching degree, and while that didn’t work out for her, she returned to Broken Hill in New South Wales and found a new way to get there.

“I did a lot of networking in the local art industry and got to know people and I got to know the local head teacher of the art department at TAFE Broken Hill,” she says. “We did some screen printing projects together, we made work for the regional art gallery and then he’s like oh we’ve got some jobs coming up, why don’t you apply?

“I applied and I got some casual work teaching there and that’s kind of where I’m like oh okay, this is what TAFE is about, this is exciting!”

“Most of my students were 20 to 30 years older than me – I was only 21 at the time so it was quite a curveball as well, dealing with older students as their lecturer… but that was such a rewarding time of my life.”

When she moved to Perth, she engaged the same networking tactic that worked for her in Broken Hill and persisted until she was hired at North Metropolitan TAFE.

life, work, family life and art practice –that’s all really important for us to be role modelsfor our students so that we see we’re putting our money where our mouth is.”

To balance her teaching and artwork she does most of her creative practice during teaching breaks: “I nd that my holidays generally get dedicated to my practice and that’s why I also love print because I can make large volumes of work during those times.”

This means she can still exhibit during periods when she doesn’t have time to dedicate to her studio work.

“I like to think of [art] as an inclusive space and an inclusive occupation or vocation rather than exclusive because I think there is a lot of exclusivity in the creative industry, I think that sense of community that TAFE generates is where you can have that inclusive environment because it provides a space for everyone regardless of age and anyone’s welcome basically and I think that’s the most beautiful thing about it,” she says.

“I was just like, I want to work here, this is my home basically, it’s an amazing place to work and it’s not about teaching art, it’s about the whole package, it’s about well there are not a lot of jobs of being an artist, it’s a really hard thing to do and be – so it’s about how do you develop a student that goes through that whole package of understanding what it is to make, how do you be resilient, how do you navigate the world as an artist to make a living, you know, that sort of gig economy that people talk about, it’s how we survive.”

Her favourite thing about teaching is seeing the light bulb moments with the students: “Where they get it and they go I understood what you’ve been raving on about for the last 15 weeks, I get it now and I see the importance of it… and even the students that have had a tough journey to see them successfully complete, that’s just amazing.

Lifelong teaching and learning

Lecturer Julie Holmes-Reid’s own career and education journey is an excellent example of what TAFE is all about. Initially completing an apprenticeship in hairdressing and working as a hairdresser for 17 years, she then took time out to raise her family, all the while making jewellery, which she also learned at TAFE. At age 50, Holmes-Reid decided on a career change and formalised her visual art and teaching credentials to become a lecturer in sculpture and jewellery.

“My journey started many years ago in teaching,” she says. “I was a hairdresser originally and I used to do a lot of apprentice training… within the salon that I worked in. I’ve always really enjoyed teaching.”

“[Then] I did an Advanced Diploma of Jewellery and Object Design when it was Central TAFE, which I really loved.”

When she completed her diploma, she tried to have a small creative business but struggled to make ends meet.

“You might make lots of nice things but it’s very di cult to make a living wage,” says Holmes-Reid, who then decided to do the TAFE Cert IV in Training and Assessment to be able to work in the TAFE system. “I always thought that that would be quite a good thing to do because obviously you’re working within the area that you’re quali ed in and it’s something that you really enjoy doing.”

She made the leap during the pandemic when TAFE fees were half-price and says: “I’ve been here ever since.”

Holmes-Reid initially began as a casual lecturer before moving to a contract position. She still remembers the rst time as a student she walked in the Western Australian School of Art, Design and Media Fine Arts and Studio Ceramics Building at Central TAFE, which opened in 2000.

“I was absolutely in heaven,” she says. “It was really hard to leave because you go from having access to all these facilities and tools, it’s just so brilliant and then you leave and you’ve got some hammers

and some les and that’s it… you realise how lucky we are, and even though we pay for it and we pay resource fees, it’s actually still quite achievable.”

Achievability is also something she brings into her teaching alongside sustainability in terms of materials and practise.

“I love teaching people how to make, to understand how to make and understand how to create something with a material as well as work out how material will work for them,” she says. “Myself as a maker, a designer… I’m trying to introduce them into things that they wouldn’t normally think of as sculptural materials. We do a lot of experimentation with the materials and getting them to understand, well, this is a cardboard box, but there’s multiple things that you can do with this.

“And as artists, they’re usually on a very tight budget. For me, it’s all about nding materials that you don’t have to pay for. We’re drowning in textiles worldwide and there is an abundance of material there that is pretty much free. I’m always trying to get them to think about how they can create a practice, because I know what it’s like when you nish. So, it’s a good way to get them to understand that materials don’t have to cost a lot.”

Building blocks to creativity

Holmes-Reid strongly believes in the value of art and its role in improving literacy, numeracy and creative thinking.

“A lot of students are studying and then having to leave and go and get employment that’s going to give them a living wage,” she says, adding that while there’s a lot of opportunity in community arts to nd employment, “the Cert IV sets the ground for creative thinking skills, and I think all workforces need creative thinkers.”

“Whether they leave here and work as an artist or not, I don’t think that is actually the point. I think if they’ve learned how to think creatively and critically that they’re going to be a completely di erent member of the workforce than if they hadn’t learnt that. That to me is the most important thing, really getting their minds working and how do they think creatively. And you do see [students develop those skills], it’s amazing from the beginning to the end of the year.”

As her life has returned to TAFE time and time again, Holmes-Reid is not shy about sharing her love for TAFE: “It’s just

so diverse. I really like the equity about it. I’m from a working-class family. I like the fact within the arts especially there’s no preconceived sort of you ‘have to have done this’ to be able to get in. Anybody can access it; I really like that.”

“The facilities are absolutely worldclass and I think the variety of the lecturers, you’ve got people from all sorts of di erent backgrounds and experiences and all doing lots of di erent things, we’ve got artists, working artists who exhibit quite regularly, we’ve got people who do a lot of public installation art, so we’ve got this really huge, good balance of all these di erent creatives that are giving people all their information, Ithink it’s absolutely fabulous.

“And I think it’s a very supportive environment as well. We are constantly trying to make sure that we see those ones that may be falling behind or disengaging and trying to bring them back in and giving them support – there’s all these things in place that we can o er them to be able to keep them going. I think it’s nice that we don’t just let people go.”

Aside from continuing her work engaging students, introducing them to sustainable practices and materials and inspiring them to think creatively, she also continues to make her own jewellery and art and educate everyone on the value of art.

Sharing journeys

Lecturer and multiple award-winning artist Gera Woltjer, an immigrant from the Netherlands, calls herself an artist rst.

“I see myself as a conceptual artist and I work in the medium of drawing and I use photography and apply it onto unusual materials to create installations for exhibitions, or to exhibit,” she says.

She found her skill for art young, rst making her own clothes from the age of 11 and then through the support of her high school art teacher. She went on to train as an art teacher in Utrecht and then studied at the Art Academy in Arnhem prior to emigrating to Australia.

“Being an artist feeds your teaching practice,” she says, adding that while teaching takes energy away from her art practice, she loves to be with students who want to learn and who like to be inspired, and particularly relishes how students’ questions keep her mind sharp.

“[Teaching] is not only about the assessments and all the work needs to be done, but the thinking process and

students nding themselves and what they really want to do and what is the best way for them to approach that,” she says. “That’s very important. It’s their journey.”

Different perspectives

Woltjer has a unique perspective as someone born and educated in art overseas and has found the voices of Australian students and artists to be meaningful and directly related to Australia’s history and white settlement.

“That has a big impact on the art and also on society and communities,” she says, adding that her students regularly bring up Australia’s history in class. “We talk a lot about it, and I’m having to study this as well.

“[At TAFE] we cover it here very well in art, culture and history about how Australia was settled and First Nations peoples, the owners of the land,” she says. “We have conversations on how artists put this story and emotion in their art making.”

She says for example when Kamilaroi/ Bigambu artist Archie Moore won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale earlier this year, his work became a subject in her art, culture and theory class. Woltjer appreciates that compared to her own education in the Netherlands where personal heritage and culture was not a prevailing subject due to a more singular history of the country, in Australia its ever-present: “Just talking about it, that awareness and that it’s so present in the art here, I think that’s very special.”

She also recognises that as someone from a high-density, overpopulated country, Australians’ connection to the bush and nature is also very evident through artistic practice: “As soon as you drive out of the cities, you can see that something else happening. I also think the bright weather, the light here, you see it in a lot of artworks –they’re more joyful, they breathe more, they are not always so heavy [as the works made in Europe].”

Student success

Just coming o assessments with Diploma and Advanced Diploma for Studio Extension students, Woltjer is buzzing with pride.

“Their hard work paid o ,” she says. “When you see the jump they have made from the rst term to the end of the second term, it’s just like, that’s why I’m here. The diversity in the work was just incredible, it’s honestly so inspiring.”

As both the local art community and the TAFE community are strongly integrated, Woltjer keeps up with many graduates.

“One of our students is an art technician in an art school, but he’s also an artist… who’s already represented in Perth and Singapore,” she says. “Another works at DADAA Gallery in Fremantle and exhibits there as well.”

She says the reality for graduating students is that they will need to have a day job whilst maintaining artistic practice, much like herself. However, she sees the students having strong opportunities to excel with their art in Perth, despite being so far away from much of the world as there is less pressure to conform to a dominant style of art and the close-knit art community supports each other: “There’s a million possibilities here [for them].”

Living and breathing art North Metropolitan TAFE students are embedded with the local art community throughout their studies, from their immediate surroundings to guest lecturers, gallery visits and the campus’ central location next to galleries state and small.

“This TAFE really is an art environment, there is art everywhere,” she says. “We’ve got real studios, there’s an art gallery, when you enter, the [pink] container is there which is an artwork (by artist and TAFE lecturer Jurek Wybraniec). We’ve got the Art Gallery of Western Australia across the street, and a cage gallery here in the building so students can exhibit. I think it’s an inspiring environment.

I’m proud to work here,” she says. “And also the library, we’ve got the best library! And very helpful librarians. I’ve never seen in my entire career such agood, curated collection of art books and journals. It’s just fantastic. Ispend quite abit of time there with my students.”

It’s fair to say that Woltjer is team Australia and team TAFE.

“TAFE is a pretty special institution in itself, Australia is very lucky to have TAFE,” she says.

PICTURED OPPOSITE (from top to bottom) Dallas Perry in the printmaking room; Julie Holmes-Reid with her students’ work; student studio space; Gera Woltjer in the campus library.

Working together

TAFE partnerships with community organisations can reengage disengaged learners and help plug skills shortages.

Article by Nicole Smith

In the midst of Australia’s national skills shortage working together has never been more important, and TAFE partnerships with community organisations and schools demonstrate how engaging and supporting new cohorts through their quali cation can be successfully achieved. There is broad recognition of the value of a TAFE education and the role that TAFE will need to have to stem skills shortages. In a recent report, Jobs and Skills Australia found 36 per cent of occupations experienced worker shortages in 2023, up ve per cent from 2022. Meanwhile a Victorian TAFE Value and Perception Challenge report found 67 per cent of Victoria’s 364 occupations

are currently experiencing a shortage and that 80 per cent of future jobs will require workers to have a TAFE quali cation.

Fee-Free TAFE is one essential component to engage and reengage students to take on quali cations and shore up the workforce. Another is community-driven support to reach cohorts who may not otherwise be able to access education.

AEU federal TAFE project o cer Michelle Purdy says partnerships are most e ective when they respect expertise and have clear goals: “When approaching TAFE with a project, clarity around expectations, the aims, timelines, and the needs of each party is important.”

“The most successful partnerships are when TAFE oversees the education, and the other party understands the needs

and potential of their cohort,” she says.

She says TAFE is unique in its capacity to work with disadvantaged and disengaged populations due to its exibility in learning and delivery and currency of curriculum.

“Partnerships are o en the introduction to vocational education for those living with disability and disadvantage, and that needs to be recognised, but a standard of competency needs to be attained, which is what TAFE brings,” says Purdy. “Only through collaboration can partnerships best meet that balance.”

Creative engagement

One example from TAFE NSW, is a partnership with Project Youth, an organisation that serves young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, to deliver Certi cate II in Music. TAFE delivered the course at Project Youth’s own premises so that students facing disadvantage felt safe in an environment familiar to them.

Ruby Maloney, social impact lead at Project Youth, says: “It was a true partnership in that TAFE was bringing the knowledge, the systems, the expertise, the education and… we were bringing the youth work, the support, the understanding of our young people and the trauma-informed wraparound services.”

She says exibility and inclusivity are key to improving partnerships.

“When there are young people that don’t t the mould of a typical student, (maybe they haven’t completed their ROSA or certi cate), we need to collaborate and nd a way of getting them where they want to go. There are a lot of people at high risk of not graduating school because of nonattendance and disengagement. If we can capture these people somewhere else such as [via] a TAFE course and get them involved in learning that they are passionate about, then I would love to see more pathways or more funding available. Our systems need to t them, not them t our systems.”

Maloney believes that creative TAFE partnerships can be therapeutic, and even if they don’t directly align

with industry employment for participants, creative outlets can build con dence, interpersonal skills, and peer connections that can lead to other opportunities.

The partnership saw all participants earn their Certi cate II quali cation, with one student now working in live music and another participant able to secure employment in the Project Youth social enterprise café following thecourse.

Finding pathways

Similarly, Matthew Dance of TasTAFE speaks with pride about a successful partnership with the Multicultural Council of Tasmania, where the two collaborated to create a bespoke emerging leadership pathway for migrants. The Diverse Leadership Program was funded through the Tasmanian government’s Training and Work Pathways Program which supports students who experience disadvantage to enter education or employment.

Multicultural Council of Tasmania (MCOT) approached TasTAFE with the idea for a bespoke program for emerging leaders of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, the rst of its kind in Tasmania. Its aim was to build leadership skills so that the diversity of the Tasmanian population is re ected in the upper levels of industry. They brought a culturally sensitive lens to the content to ensure it was tailored to the needs of participants. TasTAFE brought accredited units of competency, as well as exibility around method, format and location of content delivery, and recruitment process. Individualised learning plans were also developed.

Feedback from the pilot program was that some participants found it di cult to keep up with the amount of self-paced learning that was expected, especially those with families or cultural responsibility. The exibility o ered by TAFE enabled them to pivot and change the program to be a shorter nonaccredited course with a greater focus on practical leadership skills.

“We started delivering content but not assessing,” says Dance. “The participants undertook the leadership program,

PARTNERING WITH INDUSTRY

Industry partnerships for student placements and bespoke local area course components are important aspects for student learning.

For Karen Noble who works in the Aged Care and Disability sector of Canberra Institute of Technology, partnerships are essential when students complete placement.

“The organisations I work with use placement as a recruitment pathway. Some students also realise what the job entails and think this is not what they want to do, so the partnership is successful because it helps get the right people in the jobs,” she says.

Lowering the cost barrier to entry including flexible study arrangements and shorter courses means people often view TAFE as a starting point or a re-entry point to study. With the establishment of Fee-Free TAFE, there has been an increase in enrolments from people requiring additional support with study.

Considering this new cohort Karen Noble says to ensure e ective partnerships, assumptions need to be avoided and clear expectations set, both

learnt the content, and interacted face-to-face for four workshops a year,” he says. “Post-completion, for participants wanting to go on to the accredited course, we can [then] provide them an articulated pathway to do so.”

Out of the 25 emerging leaders who began the pilot program in 2022, 20 participants graduated. The high completion rate meant a new program round began this year.

For Dance, the program is an example of the responsiveness of TAFE and its willingness to adapt to the needs of industry and community stakeholders

regarding the ease or di culty of engaging with industry, and the numeracy and literacy levels of students. She suggests additional funding could be used to employ coaches who work one-on-one with these students, and fund pre-vocational courses or courses for foundational skills.

“There is an incorrect assumption that TAFE has the resources. TAFE wants to support everyone, community and industry and we want to do it well, but we need the funding,” she says.

The AEU’s Michelle Purdy agrees, saying more funding would allow TAFE to not only o er currency of technology to best prepare students for industry needs, but to also prepare them for the future workforce, as well as o er more individualised support directly or in tandem with partner organisations.

“Industry and technology move very quickly. Funding is needed so we can not only meet the demands of a whole range of students, but also meet the demands of government and industry in terms of equipment and infrastructure,” she says.

and for the bene t of students: “Whether it be working in government, hospitality or community services, the feedback has been very positive in terms of preparing these emerging migrant leaders to progress and setting them up for success. The core of our strategic plan is having the learner at the centre of everything we do.”

NICOLE SMITH is a freelance writer and disability advocate living on Wurundjeri land.

Championing gender equity in trades

Dr Tanya Paterson has devoted her working life to making workplaces better and safer, especially for women.

Article by Alex Landragin

Dr Tanya Paterson, Tradeswomen Australia diversity and inclusion o cer and author of Young Women in Vocational EducationandTraining has devoted her working life to making workplaces better, especially for women and people facing disadvantage.

“I’d like workplaces to stop being toxic for everyone, men and women,” she says. “I just want women and girls to be equal, and I still don’t understand why they can’t get any job they want? Why is it that women still nd it di cult to gain employment in well-paying trades? It’s still incredibly di cult for girls to get into trades.”

A natural t for Tradeswomen Australia, a non-pro t organisation working to increase the representation of women in skilled trade roles and create safe workplaces for everyone, Paterson’s expertise spans women in vocational education, disability and educating on toxic workplaces.

Having spent a lifetime working for gender equity, sometimes she can’t help but notice how slow progress has been since she started her career: “When is it going to happen? Is it going to happen soon? How can I still be in the same job, 40 years later?”

“I wrote a book called Young Women inVocationalEducationandTraining in 1987. In 2023, my new boss said, could you write something up about the barriers to women. I just copied the book… and all the issues were still the same. It’s enough to make you weep. My boss said, ‘This is incredible! Did you stay up all night doing this?’,” she says.

The slow rate of change is why Paterson is determined to keep working: “I want to try everything possible. I don’t want it to be unusual for women to be in trades.”

Part of her motivation is to ensure that women have better access to wellpaid jobs.

“If you’re in a trade, you get so much more money than if you work in childcare or in disability. If you work in childcare, it’s quite di cult to buy a house because the wage is so poor,” she says.

A lifelong teacher

Paterson wears several hats both as part of her role with Tradeswomen Australia, and as a passionate proponent of vocational education.

Paterson, who started her career as a teacher at a remote school with a high proportion of disadvantaged students, still teaches two days a week, teaching 20th Century Australian History to Year 9 and 10 students at a remote school in Tasmania. “It’s not history to me,” she

says wryly, “it’s my life. When did my life become history?”

Now that she’s back in a classroom, Paterson’s career has come full circle: “When I le school, you only had two choices. You could either be a nurse or teacher. I became a teacher, and I have to tell you, being a teacher has been a wonderful thing in my life, because not only have I taught but so many doors have opened as a result.”

Paterson taught at TAFE early in her career, teaching communications to pre-apprentices, then following the publication of her book in 1987, was appointed senior education o cer at a NSW TAFE women’s unit - her rst permanent job.

“That’s when I started helping girls and women get apprenticeships in non-traditional trades,” she says.

Subsequently Paterson went on to work in the disability and outreach sectors and spent a decade at Victoria University lecturing in workplace law and ethics. During that time, she completed a doctorate researching toxic workplaces. Paterson concluded that the tone of a workplace is o en set from the top.

“It all depends on the manager,” she says. “When you’ve got a manager who’s [behaviour is] toxic, everyone starts paying it forward. The bad behaviour trickles all the way down.”

Recognising that toxic workplaces are all too common, she says Tradeswomen Australia runs courses on mental health management for people who have been impacted by toxic workplaces.

Promoting safe and inclusive workplaces

As part of her role at Tradeswomen Australia, she’s a facilitator of Remade for Trades, a program run by Tradeswomen Australia for girls, women and nonbinary people who are experiencing disadvantage and are interested in working a trade.

Remade for Trades helps women prepare for a career in non-traditional trades and promotes safe workplaces for women and non-binary people. “[The program] gives women an idea of whether they want to do a trade or not,” says Paterson, adding that if participants realise through the program that the job they are exploring is not for them then

“We’re working with organisations to get all their policies in place, training them how to recruit for diversity.”

TAFE courses, I just want it to be normal. Thirty per cent of women as quali ed tradies would be nice. I wouldn’t mind if it was 15 per cent. That would be good. At the moment it’s three per cent. It’s been the same for the past 25 years.”

Apprenticeships for all

While resistance to change may be strong, Paterson believes the arguments around improving access to apprenticeships and trades for women are compelling.

that’s a win too, because the participant hasn’t spent years training only to realise on the job that it’s not what they want to be doing.

Remade for Trades also provides support for people wishing to transition into apprenticeships, including recruitment assistance: “We’re working with organisations to get all their policies in place, training them how to recruit for diversity. Sometimes the issue starts in recruitment – if only boys and men apply, then you don’t have any choice. But organisations like John Holland now have female participation o cers, so they’re really targeting women in jobs because there’s a skills shortage.”

TAFE at the heart

Paterson remains a passionate believer in the transformative role that TAFE can play in people’s lives.

“So many people don’t want to go to uni, and schools really do have quite an emphasis on academic behaviour. But I think more… kids would be good at TAFE, so I really want TAFE to be more accessible,” she says.

Paterson believes that despite lower numbers in recent years because of a decade of cuts in government funding, the future is bright for the sector. “More and more people are going to get to TAFE with the Fee-Free courses. TAFE is ready to have a brand new day,” she says.

Making courses Fee-Free is one part of the challenge, another is improving women’s access to trades: “I just don’t want it to be unusual for women to be in

“It just makes nancial and business sense to open up your recruitment to everyone,” she says. “It’s the only way to cure the skills shortage – if you’re ignoring 50 per cent of the population and you only want 16-year-old lads to be apprentices, you’re not going to get an apprentice.”

She says employers would bene t from a broader-minded vision of what kind of apprentice might suit them. She says older apprentices and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) apprentices o er qualities that 16-year-olds don’t have, such as life skills and strong work focus.

She also sees the need for quotas: “Everyone says, no we don’t want a quota, but they said that in 1987 and nothing’s really moved forward.”

She supports quotas of up to 50 per cent jobs and apprenticeships going to women and has high hopes for a program in Victoria requiring four per cent of total estimated hours on a building project to be completed by women who are registered apprentices, trainees or cadets. Despite the slow progress over the years, she’s optimistic that the appetite for change is growing: “Now I see so many players in the game. In 1987, there was a TAFE women’s unit pushing this forward but now there are so many organisations that want gender equity in trades. There are so many more people pushing the agenda forward. And as more and more organisations and powerful women get involved it’ll become a juggernaut that can’t be stopped.”

ALEX

LANDRAGIN is a Melbourne-based writer and musician.

Around Australia

ACT

Karen Noble

Q What was good and what was missing in the Federal Budget?

A More detail is needed. We were hoping for commitments to boost funds for student support, educator workforce development and Infrastructure and that’s not obvious at the moment.

Q What are you excited about?

A CIT Fyshwick will be the site of the country’s rst TAFE Electric Vehicle Centre of Excellence (EV CoE). The EV CoE will be part of a network of up to 20 TAFE Centres of Excellence nationwide, which will help deliver a skilled workforce for strategically important industries to meet national challenges.

Q What's next for the Rebuild with TAFE campaign?

A Focussing in on building the subbranches so our voices will be stronger.

Q What was your key takeaway from the TAFE AGM?

A From member Keith Brown who attended the TAFE AGM:

· the VET workforce is seeing investment into the sector that has been lacking for the last decade

· there is generally a positive feeling

· However Fee-Free TAFE has exacerbated or highlighted other challenges for the sector

· There needs to be investment in the workforce of the TAFE system.

· There also needs to be a heavy capital investment in training infrastructure and industry relevant equipment to ensure the that programs are delivered in environments that are consistent with industry workplaces.

· Lastly the introduction of di erent technology has to be understood and used to our advantage for learner outcomes. This comes with training for VET educators.

NSW

Phillip Chadwick

Q What was good and what was missing in the Federal Budget?

A Apart from the National Skills Agreement and the restoration of recurrent, guaranteed funding to TAFE, a big win for NSW is commitment to additional Fee-Free TAFE places. Perhaps the important missing element to the Fee-Free places is additional funding to support learners who may require critical language, literacy and numeracy support services.

Q What are you excited about?

A The announcement of $91 million over 5 years for the “Skilling the Clean Energy Workforce”. TAFE must be at the centre of upskilling and re-skilling the workforce of a clean energy future, and the opportunities for TAFE to undertake this work are manifold. The fact that Unions across NSW recognise the vital role that TAFE must play in skilling the future workforce is encouraging and testament to the reputation of TAFE in the provision of quality vocational education and training.

Q What's next for the Rebuild with TAFE campaign?

A Continuing to campaign for more permanent positions in the teacher workforce, with the attendant campaign for membership growth, activism and retention. A new Project O cer – Membership role has been created and will be trialled in Term 3.

Q What was your key takeaway from the TAFE AGM?

A Following the AGM I am cautiously optimistic. It would appear that the years of campaigns and hard work are nally bearing some fruit with implementation of federal and state policy that will return TAFE to heart of vocational education.

QLD

David Terauds

Q What was good and what was missing in the Federal Budget?

A The provision of much needed funding to rebuild the public provider.

Q What are you excited about?

A The national Photographic competition and National TAFE Daycelebrations.

Q What's important for members  to know?

A With Queensland state and the federal elections imminent holding political parties accountable for the impact of their vocational education policies is critical. The QTU will be campaigning to establish appropriate WHS workgroups in workplaces and electing HSRs. There will be an ongoing focus on enforcing agreement conditions on the writing of yearly plans and individual timetables. Discussion continues on workload and working conditions for educators working in non-traditional modes ofdelivery.

Q Any new TAFE faces?

A QTU TAFE organiser David Terauds willbe on long service leave from June through early November. Arthur Dellit will be acting TAFE organiser during that time. Arthur is a senior member of the QTU who serves on the QTU TAFE Executive and TAFE Council and a carpentry teacher based at the Toowoomba campus of TAFE Queensland South West.

Q What's next for the Rebuild with TAFE campaign?

A Continuing to raise the importance of TAFE and the public provision of vocational education, as the heart of our nation’s social equity and economic growth. The national TAFE Photography Competition is critical in bringing student experience to the attention of policy makers at every level.

SA Angela Dean

Q What are you excited about?

A We are excited to be working towards improving working conditions for our educators at TAFE SA in the next round of enterprise bargaining this year.

Q What's important for members to know?

A The AEU SA Branch is only powerful due to our members. We need a strong collective voice to ensure that we can ght for the rights of our members and better funding to rebuild a robust TAFE system for our state.

Q Any new TAFE faces?

A We have new leadership in the AEU SA Branch this year with four new faces in leadership positions: Branch Secretary Matthew Cherry, President JennieMarie Gorman, Vice President Sadie Gent and Vise President Kendall Proud. Our members look forward to working with this new leadership group.

Q What's next for the Rebuild with TAFE campaign?

A Ensuring that the promised $90million annual boost of funding outlined in the 5-year National Skills Agreement is delivered for TAFE in South Australia each year. Only with this reinvestment in TAFE SA can we deliver the vocational education needed for the future in our state.

Q What was your key takeaway from the TAFE AGM?

A Our National TAFE Council is a powerful leadership group for the TAFE Division in the AEU. Together we can work on key priorities that impact our sector and help shape the future of TAFE in Australia.

TAS

Simon Bailey

Q What was good and what was missing in the Federal Budget?

A The additional funding is fantastic, $91 million for the housing and construction sectors will help boost enrolments and Fee-Free TAFE. The establishment of the Commonwealth Prac Payment program will also help assist students who are required to undertake mandatory placements as part of their VET quali cations.

Q What are you excited about?

A Providing Centres of Excellence for VET is a fantastic opportunity to o er highlevel cutting-edge delivery which will stimulate both learners and educators.

Q What's important for members to know?

A With a federal election looming we need to push ahead ensuring that TAFE is at the heart of VET delivery. Members need to engage with their respective branches and take part in any actions that highlight the fantastic work which TAFE undertakes.

Q What's next for the Rebuild with TAFE campaign?

A Remove government funding to employer associations and build the educator workforce within TAFE.

Q What was your key takeaway from the TAFE AGM?

A That TAFE is on a precipice, one slip and we will be back down the bottom. We need to keep voicing concerns and holding governments accountable when they chose to give much needed funding and support to employer and industry groups rather than TAFE. TAFE supports everyone to succeed in life, it is the anchor of VET education which if supported long-term helpscommunities.

VIC Ellaine Gillepse

Q What was good and what was missing in the Federal Budget?

A The $600 million investment in skills and training with TAFE at its heart is the biggest win but no investment in the workforce to make their investment more achievable was a huge miss.

Q What are you excited about?

· TAFE membership is growing every week in Victoria as our EBA continues and protected is in action in place.

· That TAFE is a focus for both state and federal governments.

· That free TAFE has more students commencing their studies in TAFE.

Q What's important for members to know?

A Fee-Free TAFE is good, but it will not save TAFE if the funding remains inadequate to fund quality delivery. Currently TAFE institutes need to drastically increase class sizes as it is the only way they can a ord to run courses and because the teacher shortage that is exacerbating due to TAFE’s inability to attract and retain quality teachers. Proper funding will allow proper course delivery and more teachers.

Q Any new TAFE faces?

A We have had a new TAFE organiser, Marylouise Chapman, who has a TAFE background and years of experience as an organiser and is a fantastic addition to our TAFE team. We also have many observers attending council which is fantastic.

Q What's next for the Rebuild with TAFE campaign?

A Building membership, TAFE National Photography Competition and National TAFE Day on September 10.

WA Gary Hedger

Q What was good and what was missing in the Federal Budget?

A Biggest win: The commitment to ongoing and additional funding to Fee-Free places in TAFE. Biggest miss: A commitment to fund student support services to assist TAFE deal with students with complex needs.

Q What are you excited about?

A To see how the funding and subsidies/ paid placements for students in the identi ed skill shortages areas lead to increased student completions. Also, how the funding is used to increase women’s participation in trades areas.

Q What's important for members to know?

A That the rebuild with TAFE campaign is ongoing and we need to remain focused, we need to keep up campaigning and in contact with politicians and key stakeholders.

Q What's next for the Rebuild with TAFE campaign?

A Ensuring maximum exposure and promotion of the “The heart of TAFE” TAFE photography competition to all corners of Western Australia where TAFE students are located and make sure that TAFE teachers encourage their students to get involved.

Q What was your key takeaway from  the TAFE AGM?

A The engagement by AGM delegates with the content of the presentations by guest speakers and the panel discussions. At the conclusion of the AGM, I received positive feedback from several AGM delegates which was greatly received.

Around Australia Around Australia

The 19th VET National Teaching & Learning Conference 2024 to be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on the 15 & 16 of August, promises to be a fantastic in-person conference.

‘From Competence to Excellence – Strive to Inspire’ is designed for VET professionals to be empowered to reflect on their own practices, striving to inspire learners and student capabilities for the VET workforce.

Over 2-days there will be an array of professional learning opportunities with a focus on VET practitioners, as well as a stream of sessions featuring VET applied research for other VET Sector professionals. It is the perfect opportunity to be inspired and expand on your role as an educator whilst networking with colleagues from across Australia.

Keynote Speakers & Presentations

Expert Panels, including World Skills Australia representatives

Concurrent Teaching & Learning Workshops

Applied Research Sessions

Networking Function

Join us for this highly regarded and anticipated event!