TERTIARY EDUCATION, SKILLS, MISS OUT IN BUDGET


Shadow Minister for Tertiary Education and Training Peter Hall says the recent State Budget confirms the Brumby Government is stripping investment from the tertiary education and training sector.

Mr Hall said the government had reduced budgeted funding for its Skills and Workforce output by 3.7 per cent, budgeting $1.69 million for 2008-09 versus the $1.75 million it budgeted last financial year.
“In line with this decrease in funding, the government has deliberately set itself overly modest targets for measuring the success of its skills outputs,” Mr Hall said.

“While the government indicates it will have provided almost 83 million hours of government funded training and further education at the end of 2007-08, it only set itself a target of 78.5 million hours to be delivered next year.

“This amounts to the government giving itself wriggle room to underachieve when it comes to tertiary education and training.”
Mr Hall said the fine print didn’t match up to the government’s rhetoric on tertiary education and skills training.
“It’s interesting to consider this Budget in light of statements by Skills Minister, Jacinta Allan, who said only a week ago that ‘skills shortages are intensifying’ and ‘businesses continue to report difficulties in finding the people they need’ (Securing our future economic prosperity, Discussion paper on skills reform, April 2008).

“Despite acknowledging the skills crisis, the government has continued to under-invest in the tertiary education and training sector,” said Mr Hall.
“It has allocated some funding to extend the apprentice and trainee completion bonus for one year but this delivers little in terms of long term certainty.

“Indeed this is more so the case given the Brumby Government has signalled it is planning to end guaranteed funding for Victorian TAFE institutions.

“The budget papers confirm a shake-up of the sector is imminent, noting that the government is considering ‘options for reforming the state vocational and training sector’ (Budget Paper Three, p. 331).

“The government has also allocated one-off funding of $20 million for TAFE maintenance, but this should be a standard, ongoing commitment to ensure facilities are retained in good condition and the sector can remain competitive,” Mr Hall said.

Media contact:                  Peter Hall      (03) 5174 7066   or 0427 747 066