Australian Greens Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that the government’s ‘JobTrainer’ scheme is heavy on spin and hugely hypocritical for a government that has overseen the marketisation and disintegration of public vocational education.
Senator Faruqi said:
“This is a government that has systematically gutted public TAFE over many years.
“We have seen the failures of government-subsidised, for-profit vocational education. We should not be going down the same path.
“We need targeted investment to rebuild our entire public TAFE system. The Liberals have overseen years of cuts and marketisation of vocational education to the detriment of staff, students and communities where these institutions played a vital role.
“In real terms, the Liberals have cut more than $2 billion in funding for student places in the last few years, watched training hours collapse, and apprenticeship numbers fall to historic lows.
“We must not allow ‘JobTrainer’ to end up just another windfall for the profit-making private providers at the expense of TAFE.
“Rather than a narrow scheme of selected subsidised short courses, what we need right now is an unprecedented investment to rebuild TAFE and make it genuinely fee-free. This is a time to set ourselves up for a strong and sustainable future for all,” she said.
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