Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Workplace Relations

Inquiry into the Role of Institutes of TAFE
Submissions

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Submission 30

Barton institute of TAFE

INQUIRY INTO THE APPROPRIATE ROLES OF INSTITUTES OF TECHNICAL AND FURTHER EDUCATION

Please find attached excerpts from the Executive Summary of Barton's Response to the Victorian Government's Ministerial Review of Provision of TAFE in Melbourne Metropolitan area.

This summary addresses both the terms of reference of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training Inquiry namely:

• The appropriate roles of Institutes of TAFE; and
• The extent to which these roles should overlap with universities.

Barton is a TAFE Institute in south-east metropolitan Melbourne. It provides vocational and education training programs to the Automotive, Manufacturing, Food Processing, Business Management, Hospitality and Community Services sectors.

Barton's annual turnover is approx $43m, 60% of which is direct government funding allocation. The remainder is generated through tendering for government funding, and fee for-service consultancies, both in Australia and overseas.

The Institute has 17,000 students enrolled including a growing number of international fee- paying students, and delivers programs to school leavers, apprentices, entry-level operators, as well as a range of Certificates leading to Diplomas and Advanced Diplomas.

The Institute employs approximately 800 staff who works from two suburban campuses as well as in workplaces throughout metropolitan Melbourne and country Victoria. Currently a number of staff are working overseas on short and longer term projects in Mauritius, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

The Institute has articulation arrangements in place with Deakin University, Monash University, University of Melbourne and Victoria University of Technology and RMIT. The Institute also enters into co-operative alliances with high education, private providers and industry in research and projects.

Barton believes the primary role of Institutes of TAFE is in meeting the diverse human resource development needs of industry and the community.

Co-operative arrangements with Universities enable articulation for these customers seeking further study, partnerships with Universities, TAFE Training Institutes broadening the understanding of the needs of Australian industry and how best to meet their needs.

Yours sincerely

 

COLIN GRISS

Director and CEO

 

Att.

Maximising efficiency, competition and customer-choice

Barton Institute of TAFE recognises the challenges ahead for the TAFE Institutes in the Melbourne -metropolitan area in delivering seamless, flexible and customer-focused vocational education and training into the 21st century. To meet these challenges, a balance needs to be found between providing an appropriate range of diversity in Vocational Education and Training (VET) provision and further enhancing customer choice and responsiveness to industry and the community.

Barton recognises the importance of financial viability and the value of economies of scale. The need to become less dependent on government funding, the importance of strategic alliances, of increased internationalisation and the development of a customer-focused culture must underpin the operations of any TAFE institute if the challenges ahead are to be met. Barton has invested heavily in the future, through conversion of financial reserves into facilities, equipment, and human resource development to strengthen our longer term competitiveness. The Edmund Barton Centre, the investment in technology and the Institute's comprehensive professional development and management development strategies have positioned the organisation to lead the field in flexible, responsive best practice.

The identification of optimal sizes and appropriate structural arrangements of metropolitan TAFE institutions is important in maximising efficiencies within the system. Optimisation of facilities and rationalisation of corporate services play an important part in increasing the return on investment. In determining the most efficient and effective ways of meeting customer needs in the VET system, the principles of diversity, competition and genuine user-choice need to be applied.

Responsiveness to local, state, national and international markets

The TAFE institutes of the future, whilst responding to the particular needs of the local industry and community, will increasingly deliver programs within the state and national context in their areas of competitive strength, with such geographical diversity possible through the increasing application of flexible delivery strategies.

The role that vocational education and training must play in further internationalising the Australian community and the economy highlights the requirement, not only for an increase in inbound international students, but the requirement to work in partnership with companies and governments in delivering specialist training in the Asia/Pacific region. The role of education in enhancing our export performance makes this area of further development imperative.

These distinct areas of TAFE institution program and service delivery, highlight the need to promote the status of TAFE institutes for the contribution they make to our economic performance. Limiting the capacity of TAFE institutes to fulfil this important and expanding role by subsuming them into higher education institutions is not, in Barton's view, in the interests of Victoria. It is imperative to maintain the responsiveness and flexibility expected from TAFE institutes, and to promote them for the distinctly different roles and relationships they have to higher education institutions.

TAFE's role in delivering the VCE

The government's requirement for more vocational emphasis and opportunities within the Victorian Certificate of Education can only be enhanced by freeing up the present limitations on TAFE institutes in the delivery of such components of the VCE. They are clearly best placed to use their facilities, expertise, and strong relationships with local industries to most effectively deliver such components of the Certificate. In Barton's case our plans to play a significant role in the provision of employment services, further strengthens the justification for allowing the delivery of such programs in TAFE and the linking of education to work.

Significance of strategic alliances with higher education and workplace partnerships

The important role that TAFE institutes must play in setting up strategic alliances with other educational institutions and with organisations within Australia and overseas needs to be supported. The benefits of developing workplace learning partnerships could be significantly diminished if high performing TAFE institutions were subsumed within existing university structures.

Barton currently has collaborative arrangements with a number of universities in Melbourne and overseas. These include joint project work and articulation arrangements with Deakin, Melbourne, Monash and RMIT universities, the Institute Pertanian in Bogor, Indonesia, and the University of Leicester, UK

Barton is able to move freely between universities in negotiating credit and partnership arrangements, with the aim of most comprehensively promoting user choice and meeting customers need for recognition, flexibility and responsiveness.

In particular, the delivery of higher education programs under licence or in partnership with universities, whether they be Australian or overseas, would enable TAFE institutes to provide more comprehensive training packages to companies, enhancing their competitiveness and opening up new opportunities in the international training market.

Any changes to structural arrangements brought about by this review, and in particular those that affect Barton, must create greater learning opportunities for individuals and organisations through higher quality programs, a wider range of learning strategies, and stronger relationships between the educational and industrial sectors.

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