TAFE funding a winner with voters

10 July 2018

Voters have given a big tick of approval to Australia’s TAFE system, with new polls showing wide support for more guaranteed public funding of Australia’s public vocational education sector.

The TAFE system has seen government funding cut by more than 15% between 2007 and 2016.

However according to voters in several federal seats facing a by-election, TAFE funding has proven to be a real vote winner.

According to new ReachTEL polling [1], 76.7 per cent of respondents in the Tasmanian seat of Braddon said the funding of public TAFE was personally important to them in deciding who to vote for.

In addition, almost 58 per cent of Braddon poll respondents supported at least 70% of total government spending on vocational education being guaranteed to the public TAFE sector.

In the Queensland seat of Longman, 62.6 per cent [2] of respondents said the funding of public TAFE was personally important to them in deciding who to vote for. Meanwhile, more than half of respondents supported at least 70% of total government spending on vocational education being guaranteed to the public TAFE sector.

To help guarantee TAFE’s future, the AEU has launched the ‘TAFE Manifesto’, a blueprint which outlines a path to fixing Australia’s TAFE system.

The Australian Education Union’s TAFE Manifesto calls on the Federal Government to:

1. Guarantee a minimum of 70% government funding to the public TAFE system. No public funding should go to private for-profit providers, consistent with other education sectors.

2. Restore funding and rebuild the TAFE system, to restore confidence in the quality of the courses and qualifications and the institution.

3. Abandon the failed student loans experiment, and cancel the debts of all students caught up in private for-profit provider scams.

4. Re-invest in the TAFE teaching workforce and develop a future-focused TAFE workforce development strategy in collaboration with the profession and unions.

5. Develop a capital investment strategy in consultation with state governments, to address the deplorable state of TAFE facilities around the country.

6. Support a comprehensive independent inquiry into TAFE.

[1] ReachTEL poll surveyed 823 residents in the federal electorate of Braddon on the evening of 5 June 2018

[2] ReachTEL poll surveyed 830 residents in the federal electorate of Longman on the evening of 5 June 2018