Yearly Archives: 2017

A professional forum organised by Community Colleges Australia (CCA) has highlighted the capacity that community colleges can play in meeting New South Wales regional economic development challenges. The Hon Ben Franklin MLC, Parliamentary Secretary for Northern New South Wales – representing the Deputy Premier of NSW, the Hon John Barilaro MP, opened the Forum, saying...

Funding cuts to TAFE systems have been highlighted on ABC TV News. Speaking on a national news broadcast on 22 October 2017, Australian vocational education and training (VET) expert Dr Leesa Wheelahan – now based in Canada at the University of Toronto – said:  "We're at a tipping point right. We can either save...

ABC TV’s 7.30 Report has featured a story on independent Australian high schools hosted by not-for-profit organisations. Entitled Schools Helping Children Who Don't Fit In, ABC TV broadcast the 7’13” story on Monday 16 October. Reporter Michael Atkin visited two Queensland independent high schools that focus on the needs of teenagers “who don’t fit in”:...

The self-styled “queen of capitalism”, Business Council of Australia (BCA) CEO Jennifer Westacott, says that providing the best education and training to Australians as a “moral imperative”. Speaking at the National Press Club on 11 October, Jennifer Westacott proposed a new tertiary education and training system “to prevent Australians falling through the cracks...

Community education training providers delivering government-funded vocational education and training (VET) over-perform in delivering to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, in comparison to other providers – TAFE and the private for-profit sector. This is the key message arising from the Community Colleges Australia (CCA) analysis of 2016 data published by the National...

This week, Fairfax economics columnist Ross Gittins wrote an opinion piece on educational challenges facing Australia’s young people: “The young are mostly right, they are getting a bad deal”, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 September 2017. Much of what Gittins writes about vocational education and training (VET) in Australia is so correct that it is worth...