ADVICE given to the state government before it announced a $300 million cut in TAFE funding is being withheld despite TAFE institutes calling for the release of the full modelling.
A freedom of information request by the state Opposition has revealed $150,000 was spent on the advice from consulting firm KPMG.
Victorian TAFE Association executive director David Williams said the contents of the advice must be made public for the sake of transparency.
Mr Williams said those in greatest need in the TAFE system were being hardest hit hard by the cuts.
“The cuts are the biggest in the history of TAFE and it’s anticipated the additional cost of training students with special needs will present a major challenge to many institutes now struggling to remain viable.”
TAFE staff walked off the job on Thursday as about 2000 people turned out in Treasury Gardens for a noisy rally against the cuts.
Future action has been flagged with the TAFE sector vowing to keep up the fight until the government agrees to reverse the cuts.
Skills Minister Peter Hall said the industrial action was unnecessary and caused “inconvenience for TAFE students and the wider community”.
“While any period of change causes some uncertainty, I am confident that Victoria’s training system is responding to the changes well and that we will have a stronger, more responsive and sustainable system in the future.”
But Opposition leader Daniel Andrews, in Footscray last week to meet Victoria University TAFE students and teaching staff to discuss the impact of the cuts, said they were rightly concerned about the cuts.
“These cuts could spell the end . . . training might be on its last legs in the western suburbs.”
The Weekly revealed last week that VU was slashing almost 80 courses and more than 100 teaching jobs following almost $40 million in funding cuts, with plans to sell off the Newport campus and close the VenU training restaurant.
Footscray MP Marsha Thomson said VU was an integral part of the western suburbs as a leader in alternate pathways into further education.
“If [Premier] Ted Baillieu wanted to show working families that he doesn’t care about their kids, then there is no better way than to cut TAFE.”
Federal Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Chris Evans said “destroying” the TAFE sector would mean Victoria would not have the skilled workforce it needed for the jobs of the future.
Former premier Steve Bracks said the TAFE cuts would never have got through an active cabinet.
“I suspect what’s happened with this government is that they said they wanted to cut.”
