Labor vows to back local TAFE campuses

AN elected Labor Government will get local TAFE campuses back on track and tackle the state’s skills crisis, according to Mark Vanstone, the Labor candidate for the Myall Lakes electorate.

According to a media statement from Vanstone and Tim Crakanthorp MP, Shadow Minister for Skills and TAFE, a third of the state’s TAFE’s teaching staff have been sacked, fourteen campuses have been sold off or approved for sale, enrolments have plummeted by 160,000, and apprenticeship and traineeship completions have halved.

According to the statement, the Taree and Great Lakes campuses have not been immune, with Taree enrolments down by half and over a third of its staff lost.

Great Lakes has been hit even harder, with enrolments down 59 per cent and staffing down 58 per cent.

Mark Vanstone, Labor Candidate for Myall Lakes said, “Both Taree and Great Lakes TAFEs used to be vibrant community hubs, but now they are shells of their former selves.

“When I speak to the community about TAFE, I always hear back how important it is in making sure our kids get the skills and training they need to enter the workforce.”

NSW Labor has pledged to support NSW TAFE to deliver the long-term strategies needed to resolve the skills crisis, starting with a guarantee that a minimum of 70 per cent of total skills funding will go to TAFE to ensure that is has the financial stability it needs to flourish and a review of the vocational education system. and TAFE said, “NSW is in a skills crisis.

Labor will also tackle the conditions of hard-working TAFE teachers starting with an open dialogue with the sector and the abolishment of the Liberal National Government’s wages cap.

“In just twelve months the number of occupations of National Skills Priority List has almost doubled.

“These commitments are the first step in righting the wrongs of the last decade of mismanagement.

Tim Crakanthorp MP, Shadow

Minister

for Skills

“Only a Minns Labor Government will restore TAFE to what it used to be and re-skill NSW.”