A prime opportunity for the TAFE campaign to give voice to community opposition to the TAFE cuts came on September 6. Victoria's Upper House of parliament was sitting in Bendigo and its Lower House was at the University of Ballarat.
TAFE
About 200 past and present students, teachers, local residents and local traders rallied to save Swinburne University of Technology鈥檚 Prahran TAFE campus on August 5. The event was organised by the National Tertiary Education Union and former staff and students.
Former Swinburne executive director of educational development Judy Bissland has worked at the campus for 30 years.
鈥淚 am still involved with campus through working with disengaged youth,鈥 she told the crowd. 鈥淔unding cuts to TAFE and the vocational sector [are] disastrous. We need to take action to stop cuts or modify cuts.鈥
The Victorian state government has begun a neoliberal experiment with the Victorian public as its guinea pigs.
After the Jeff Kennett-led Coalition state government in the 1990s privatised electricity, gas, public transport, roads, prisons, prisoner transport and much else, one of the few things left to be privatised is vocational education.
Job losses of 2000 permanent workers have been reported. However, adding all sessional teachers who won't have their contracts renewed, the number who will lose their job tallies to about 10,000, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) says.
More than 100 students, teachers and union activists heard speakers slam private-sector training at a August 2 protest against TAFE cuts at RMIT鈥檚 city campus.
Anger and concern is spreading as people become aware of the scale of the cuts to the TAFE sector. The Baillieu government said it would slash $300 million from the TAFE sector in Victoria.
At a public meeting titled 鈥淭AFE Cuts, Education and the Capitalist Crisis鈥, the president of the National Tertiary Education Union鈥檚 University of Ballarat branch, Jeremy Smith said 57 courses were being totally axed at Ballarat TAFE.
Students from the only remaining full-time Auslan course in Victoria have been learning to sign the words 鈥減rotest rally鈥, and 鈥淧arliament House鈥, Lana Schwartz told a 250-strong rally to save the course on May 30.
Auslan is the sign language used by the deaf community, and Schwartz is a student in the Auslan diploma offered by Kangan Batman TAFE in Melbourne. But the TAFE announced the course would be axed at the end of the year.
As part of savage budget cuts, the Victorian Coalition government has slashed $300 million over four years of funding for the provider of public technical and further education, the state鈥檚 18 TAFE institutes that teach about 400,000 students a year.
Funding per student in 80% of courses has been cut from about $8 per training hour to as low as $1.50 - to a range meant to reflect labour market priorities.
Trades apprenticeships, aged care and child care received some small increases.
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