private provider challenges entrenched ACT media view

The frustration that private providers deal with in attempting to shift firmly entrenched media perceptions is something that will be all too familiar to ACPET members.

The strongly held view that tertiary education and training is an activity almost exclusively to be delivered by public institutions with private providers somehow operating at the margins of the greater main game appears to dominate whenever the media reports on the sector.

It is this view that undoubtedly informed a recent article appearing in the Canberra Times titled Billions needed to resurrect training authored by Education Reporter Scott Hannaford. In his piece, TAFE’s and the Australian Education Union are quoted as expressing their dismay at the decline in future public funding for TAFE’s whilst ignoring any reference to private providers and the important role that they play within this great system of ours.

Faced with this frustration, it is refreshing to know that private providers are not in the habit of sitting back and allowing the status quo to remain unchallenged with Master Builders Association of the ACT’s Grant Daley responding to the editor of the article as follows.

"Dear Sir or Madam,

I write to express my concern about the front-page article by Mr. Scott Hannaford in Tuesday's Canberra Times ("Billions needed to resurrect training") March 16 2010.

In the Australian Capital Territory where 'User Choice' policy (the right of the employer to choose where their Australian Apprentices receive training) is publicly championed and practised more than anywhere else in the whole of Australia, where in 2009 a representative cross-section of ACT-based Journalists attended a function run at Master Builders' new premises to specifically raise an awareness of our private training provider capability, where Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Brendan O'Connor in early 2009 amidst a wide audience of press representatives, visited and announced inter alia, new policy relating to re-employment options for apprentices who were out of work, we still read articles which feed the public misperception that TAFEs are the only vocational training providers. Worse, the research referred to in the article and provided by Monash University does not acknowledge the equal place of private providers in the vocational/training arena and implicit within the research report to CoAG (as represented by Mr. Hannaford) is a non-existent demarcation line between vocational training and tertiary education. It has us conclude that educational elitism is alive and well and it is being offered to the CoAG as credible and objective research. At least Andrew Barr MLP referenced the capability of the ACT private providers but this was reported in a way that suggests that the raison d'être for private providers are merely a function of poorly targetted public provider spending.

This is insulting to private providers every which way. It suggests an unconscious mind-set that exists within federal and territory funding arenas which proscribes TAFEs as the 'legitimate' vocational training provider. Recent newspaper articles in Melbourne highlighted 'shonky' practice by a couple of local private training providers as though this was only to be expected by learners who engaged training options outside of the domain of the TAFE system. When this view is inculcated into university research (as evidenced in this article) and then reported on by the Fourth Estate - what chance do we as private training providers have of ever accessing a level playing field in terms of public opinion?

Vocational training in its purest form demands the stakeholder-ship of the contributing industry or industries and the ability of learners to be able to articulate through their training agreements according to their abilities, knowledge and skills. Master Builders in the ACT does not set out to compete with the public provider TAFE system on the basis of comparisons; Master Builders ACT sets and maintains its own standards, competition notwithstanding, and audits and standards of excellence attest to our training capability. We continue to operate at the highest standards in the face of public perceptions about 'TAFE diplomas' as a natural and unique linkage between nationally-accredited qualifications and TAFEs and this is fed by another piece of journalism which is both partisan and elitist in its substance.

The User Choice policy augmented by the CoAG in 2006 was a courageous and world-leading initiative to ensure that consumers within the Australian education and training market could choose the best available option for their ongoing education and training and this is widely acknowledged internationally as progressive public policy. It is a great pity that what is seen overseas as a showcase is not supported locally by either the system itself or those who report on it to the public.

Grant Daly
DIRECTOR SKILLS DEVELOPMENT & RESEARCH

MBA of the ACT"