Occasional Paper - TAFE Directors Australia

26
Tiger or pussycat:
What’s in a name TAFE by any
other name
The East Gippsland TAFE brand
strategy story:
August 2009–August 2010
East Gippsland TAFE drivers to examine our brand
ANGELA HUTSON
Chief Executive Officer, East Gippsland
Institute of TAFE
Angela has been CEO of East Gippsland
TAFE for six years. She has a passion for
people, places, new ways of working,
community and industry engagement
and polygamous organisational
partnerships. She is also Vice-President of
the Regional Hospital Board, Vice-Chair of
the Regional Development Australia-
Gippsland Committee, a member of the
East Gippsland Economic Development
Advisory Board and a Ministerial
appointee to the TAFE Development
Centre Board. Her last qualification was a
Master in Organisational Leadership and
her next one will be in Commercial
Cookery – through TAFE, of course. She
also holds a Grad Dip Bus (E&I), Grad Cert
Enterprise Mgt, DipEd, and a BA.
• Policy context is a given, for example, Securing
jobs for your future – Skills for Victoria.
• It is an opportune time to examine our brand in
the context of full contestability.
• We can’t rest on our laurels – what gave us
success in the past will not guarantee our
future.
• We need to acknowledge our history, our
success, our story, our experience but that is
not enough.
• We need a common language/message/script.
• We need to promise to provide value rather
than focusing on price.
History
It is thirty-six years since the Kangan Report called
for TAFE to provide people with education to meet
their freely chosen vocational needs. The report
says TAFE’s job is not just to supply skilled labour
for industry and commerce. All technical colleges
became known as Technical and Further Education
Colleges. Individual opportunity and social
improvement became catch-cries and important
philosophies.
In the 1990s, as Vocational Education and Training
(VET) became the term associated with the private
and public components of the sector, which by
now was an industry in itself, the national nature of
training was strengthened.
The TDA role is to position TAFE institutes as the
major training brand delivering skills in Australia.