THE Teachers Federation has expressed doubt about claims from the NSW Skills Minister that tens of millions of dollars saved by a restructure of TAFE NSW would be reinjected into the education provider.
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Minister John Barilaro was in Orange on Monday to meet staff and students where he said the goal of the proposed restructure was to save money on administration and restore funding to teaching.
Mr Barilaro said between 40 and 60 cents in every dollar of TAFE funding went to administration costs and by freeing that up and selling some assets, greater investment could be made.
“We can fast track tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, for new investment,” Mr Barilaro said.
“We can invest not just in bricks and mortar but also in new technology.”
However Teachers Federation organiser Duncan McDonald said he found it hard to believe that so much was spent on administration or that TAFE would benefit from more changes.
“I understand the minister is in public relations mode now. He made his announcement and now he is trying to sell it,” Mr McDonald said.
“There have been sales of assets including campuses that have been sold and equipment that has been put to auction and in terms of evidence that money has been put back into TAFE, there isn’t much,” he said.
Mr McDonald said plans to replace the troubled Learning Management and Business Reform (LMBR) IT system were positive but an alternative needed to be thoroughly tested before it was given a green light.
I understand the minister is in public relations mode now. He made his announcement and now he is trying to sell it.
- Duncan McDonald
“The chaos created by the system was compounded by the the problem of increased fees and it was only the hard work of teachers that stopped things from being even worse,” he said.
Mr McDonald said the government’s Smart and Skilled policy had brought TAFE to its knees and only significant investment would save it.
Mr Barilaro on Monday told TAFE Western staff and students planned changes won’t be easy but will make for a better and more relevant TAFE in the future.
“There is going to be pain and I don’t want to hide from that or mislead you that this is going to be easy,” he said.
“It’s like flying an airplane at the same time because we still have to be focused on what we are trying to achieve and that’s the training outcome for young people so they can get jobs.”
