Heated talks on TAFE as secret papers reveal plans

HASTILY convened talks between Victoria's TAFE directors and the Education Department have failed to quell anger about a leaked document revealing sweeping changes to the sector.

Plans for mergers, campus closures and steep tuition fee increases were outlined in the document, which summarised confidential transition plans submitted by the institutes.
Holmesglen TAFE chief Bruce Mackenzie said the department had rejected the directors' request for $100 million in ''structural adjustment'' funding in yesterday's meeting. ''This is just bleeding institutes to death,'' he said.
The government had ordered the institutes to submit transition plans after it cut about $290 million from the TAFE sector. Mr Mackenzie said some of the document had created false impressions about TAFE institutes' plans.

The Holmesglen submission proposes possibly buying out the government's ownership of the institute. Mr Mackenzie said the TAFE could own 51 per cent, with the rest owned by a university. But he said there were no definite plans to buy out the TAFE.
A spokesman for Higher Education Minister Peter Hall said the government had not yet responded to any of the proposals from the TAFE institutes. He said the government would spend an extra $1 billion over four years on training.
La Trobe University also submitted its own plan and lists its preferred option of merging with Sunraysia, GOTAFE and Wodonga institutes.
But La Trobe spokesman Mark Pearce said a merger was unlikely in the short term.
Swinburne University yesterday released the executive summary of its plan to stem the fallout from the leak. Earlier in the day, Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews held a press conference at the Prahran campus after the documents revealed the university's intention to sell the property for $50 million. The plan proposes that the state government acquire the site apart from the space occupied by the National Institute of Circus Arts.
The university asks to be allowed to sell the property if the government does not wish to acquire it. The university also urges the government to hand over an extra $1.4 million so that it can continue to offer its theatre arts course, which is now taught in Prahran.
In the document, Holmesglen TAFE also reports its interest in acquiring the Prahran campus.
Mr Andrews said the TAFE system was suffering under the Baillieu government's cuts. ''TAFE is in crisis. This is going to hurt so many young people for so many years,'' he said.

theage.com.au 15 Sep 2012

TAFE and some university campuses are being secretly shut down, with the very plausible excuse that enrollments are not there to justify the expenditure of keeping the uni or TAFE open.

Students are being turned down in order to support the corporate and government agenda to close down education for the masses.