The NSW and the Federal governments -- both pointing at each other -- have allowed/caused the TAFE system to become a mere shadow of its former self, and it's nothing short of scandalous. Maybe this guy can resuscitate it, but it seems he'll be pulled in multiple directions at the same time by committees of 'experts'. Nonetheless, I wish him well. It needs to be fixed and soon.

QUOTE: As managing director of TAFE NSW, [Steffen] Faurby needs every advantage at a time when he's under huge pressure to come up with results.

Not only is the NSW government paying him $575,000 a year for outcomes, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indirectly given him an ultimatum to lift TAFE's game.

Morrison has been blunt in his criticism of the way states and territories have run what he recently described as a "bewildering" vocational training system that was "clunky and unresponsive" to industry demand for skills. It was too complex and did not give students clear information about the skills they needed to get jobs. It was also riddled with inconsistencies in course prices and was unaccountable for the way it spent $1.5 billion in Commonwealth funding every year. There were variations of more than $6000 for example for students studying the same course in different states.

It's been are very long time since Tafe was any good. It's very out dated and lacks funds, plus it's full of bad lectures.
The certificate 3 does not open many doors and many places expect a lot more.
A lot of the courses are out dated.
It would be good if it could be up dated and run properly though.

Pete

In Management in the late 70's; Illiterate work unready students were being churned out. Not a lot has changed.

Marc

I am glad I completed my apprenticeship when I did. Things were so much easier back then and if you wanted to do a course, you picked up the TAFE Handbook and everything you needed to know what right before you. I can't get my head around any of that nonsense now and both TAFE and private educators prefer to spend more time offering everyone flexibility and one can work at one's own pace. One has to dig deep to find out things like the cost of fees, pre-requisites and other relevant information. Once all that is known, you then find out that a college close to you isn't running the course!

When I did my trade, I was told I had three years to do it and if it wasn't completed by the time my four year trade had concluded then I would have to catch up at night school until it was done. And until that was done, no trade certificate from the DIR and no licences from the Office of Fair Trading. Fortunately, I did complete everything on time but these days, apprenctices don't need to make commitments, which is why the drop-out rate is a lot higher now than back then.

I don't think many people under my age got a teade.? I've been fixing things for people under my age for years. They don't have hand skills or an understanding how to fix,Restore, make anything.
Which was good for me as I needed the work .
One good thing about working for them on project jobs is they pay well!
The young people pay for the work .
I find that older people are often very out of touch about costs of Labor and materials.
But most of my work came from young folks who just can't do hands on.

Pete

The rot started with the Greiner government.I had passed all the necessary stuff to be a part time TAFE teacher and just waiting to start and it all got canned and it all went down rapidly from there.

He was as about as popular as a turd in the pool .... I had a full time job then ,But everyone I knew were jobless , I rembember I through my job in to go over seas and I got a lot of comments from the people I knew saying I was crazzy throwing the Job in ... I think by memory ,,89,90 92 93 Jobs were hard to get , But I wasn't here for a some of that time

Nick Greiner was unpopular because his government laid off about 150,000 public servants. Back in those days, governments were pretty much self sufficient and were actively involved in manufacturing processes. These days, it's all done by private enterprise. In some ways, the old ways were better but the economy works better with governments just making laws and letting business take care of the rest.

Look at Sydney's emerging road tunnel network as one simple example. If this was being built by the Dept. Main Roads, they'd still be thinking about planning to turning the first sod. At the moment, it's about 50% complete, if you take into account the three tunnels yet to be started. As the current transport minister rightly (I think) pointed out, if governments in the 1970s hadn't decided to sell off the road corridors reserved under the County of Cumberland Road Plan, WestConnex would have been able to be built on the surface. These days it is too politically dangerous to raze tens of thousands of homes and businesses to built new roads or widen existing ones. The NSW Government has been in strife assuming less than 100 for each stage of that project so imagine the consequences of adopting the alternative.

The irony here is that WestConnex is the brainchild of Nick Greiner. So whether he was just making up for past deeds when he was the chairman of Infrastructure NSW or for whatever other reason, I am not sure. But he co-ordinated the basic design of the network, set up the funding model and encouraged the NSW Government to asset-recycle, which basically means flogging a bit of the family silver to pay for new silver. I thought it had all pretty much been sold off by now but it is amazing to find out what is actually still in government hands.

This is a 'huge' subject .... the responsibility for the disaster that is TAFE today is well spread out and stems back many, many years. Federal and State Govts, Universities and TAFE's themselves, Businesses and the Workers, Local and World economics, Public perceptions and attitudes etc all played a role to get to where the system is today. There are too many $'s and too much self-interest wrapped up in this system to put it back to where it was ....