here - TAFE Directors Australia

Recommendation 1: TDA proposes that the Commonwealth Budget
provide a matching allocation of $206m for performance funding for
TAFE institutes, to apply over a four-year period and that these funds be
directed towards tertiary education initiatives and at improving tertiary
participation.
3.2 Structural adjustment
‘Transforming Australia’s Higher Education System’ introduced for universities the policy of structural
adjustment funding to provide funding certainty during a period of major transition. In the case of
universities, the move to a student-centred funding system encourages universities to consider their
individual strategic direction and focus on ways to achieve long-term sustainability.
As referred to earlier in this submission, Australian TAFE institutes have similar challenges and needs.
Located in the centre of the post-secondary education spectrum, with universities on one side and
schools on the other, the structures and operations of TAFE institutes need to accommodate both the
changing nature and role of the other sectors and be well placed to continue providing leadership in
vocational education and training.
As the nation recovers from the impacts of the global economic downturn, there is an exponential
growth in the demand from industry for a skilled workforce. TAFE institutes need to be resourced to
meet this challenge. This will include the need to embrace change in the structure and nature of TAFE
itself.
The ‘Teaching and Learning Capital Fund for VET’, announced as part of the Government’s Higher
Education policy, was a welcome acknowledgement of this need and a major investment in TAFE
institutes’ infrastructure and capital works (along with the EIF). However, across the TAFE sector there
is a lack of detailed knowledge as to how this Fund will operate in practice and how individual TAFE
institutes might access these funds.
The perceived deficiency of the ‘Teaching and Learning Capital Fund for VET’ is that it does not
encompass the other crucial aspect of structural reform needs, that is, finding new and innovative
models for delivering VET as part of the post-secondary education spectrum.
Developments overseas involving new institutional and organisational structures such as
polytechnics, university colleges and higher education vocational institutes all warrant examination
and possible trial introduction in Australia. TAFE institutes are the appropriate vehicles for doing so
and the establishment of a TAFE Structural Adjustment Fund with TAFE institutes able to apply for
funding for specific projects would enable this.
8