2019-07-20
Australian Greens Senator and Spokesperson for Education, Dr Mehreen Faruqi, has said that new TAFE data released today shows the continued decline of TAFE and must be a wake up call to save TAFE.
A new report by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research has shown that for government funded vocational education: student numbers have dropped 1.9%, subject enrolments have dropped 5.7%, and training hours have dropped 6.4%.
Senator Faruqi said:
“This new data once again proves what communities have been saying for some time, TAFE is being slowly destroyed by government neglect and a lack of funding.
“TAFE is an essential part of our public education system but has been deliberately decimated by state and federal governments. We want to see private for-profit providers removed entirely from federal funding of vocational training and TAFE given as close to 100% of funding as possible.
“The Greens have a plan to rebuild TAFE as the vocational training provider of choice for students. We will remove the Gillard-era contestable funding requirements and make TAFE and uni free for all,” she concluded.