tattwinter23

THE AUSTRALIAN

TAFE TEACHER VOL 57/2

WINTER 2023

Creating culturally safe spaces Valuing students with disability Funding TAFE via the National Skills Agreement

New Fair Work Act changing lives

Better job security, pay and equality

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We proudly support an important change to make Australia fairer and better.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a profound call from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples for constitutional change and structural reform in their relationship with Australia.

will give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People a direct line to Parliament to provide advice on any laws and policies that directly affect them.

The AEU urges all Australians to hear the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People who call for support for the Voice to Parliament.

The AEU is proud to support the Yes campaign for a Voice to Parliament and we stand with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in this struggle.

A Voice enshrined in the Australian Constitution

AEU Federal Conference Statement 2023.

Join the Unions For Yes campaign ausunions.io/unionsforyes © AEU 2023 Authorised by Kevin Bates, Federal Secretary, Australian Education Union 120 Clarendon Street, Southbank, Victoria, Australia 3006.

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Contents The Official Journal of the TAFE Division of the Australian Education Union VOL57 • N0.2 • WINTER 2023

Australian TAFE Teacher (ISSN: 0815-3701) is published for the Australian Education Union by Heads & Tales.

The magazine is circulated to all TAFE members of the AEU nationally.

Heads & Tales, Ground Level, Building 1, 658 Church St, Richmond 3121 Tel: (03) 8520 6444 • Fax: (03) 8520 6422 Email: tafeteacher@hardiegrant.com

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AEU and subscription enquiries: Australian Education Union Federal Office, PO Box 1158, South Melbourne Victoria 3205 Tel: (03) 9693 1800 • Fax: (03) 9693 1805 Email: aeu@aeufederal.org.au facebook.com/AEUfederal @AEUfederal

CAMPAIGN

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Editor Kevin Bates Publisher Fiona Hardie Account manager Christine Dixon Art direction & design Dallas Budde & Robert Bertagni Printer Printgraphics Printgreen

PEOPLE

Circulation: 11,000 Copyright rests with the writers, the AEU and Heads & Tales.

No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the copyright holders. The opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily the official policy of the AEU.

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ICONIC TAFE

Federal TAFE President Michelle Purdy

Features

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MORE SECURE JOBS, BETTER PAY How the new Fair Work Act will change working lives for TAFE teachers and support staff PROMISES AND PROPOSITIONS The National Skills Agreement is an opportunity to #RebuildwithTAFE VALUING STUDENTS WITH DISABILITY TAFE offers a unique pathway to enter the workforce CREATING CULTURALLY SAFE SPACES Reducing cultural burden is everyone's responsibility

Your national TAFE Council Executive members:

Federal TAFE Secretary Maxine Sharkey

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MAKING MORE THAN A DIFFERENCE Reflections from departing TAFE Queensland CEO Mary Campbell

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ICONIC TAFE Connecting industry and community at Griffith Leeton TAFE

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WORKPLACE CULTURE Behavioural changes that support a stronger, more inclusive workplace

Regulars

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT

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AROUND AUSTRALIA

ACT Karen Noble aeuact@aeuact.org.au • 02 6272 7900 • aeuact.org.au NSW Philip Chadwick mail@nswtf.org.au • 02 9217 2100 • nswtf.org.au NT Vacant admin@aeunt.org.au • 08 8948 5399 • aeunt.org.au QLD Dave Terauds qtu@qtu.asn.au • 07 3512 9000 • qtu.asn.au SA Angela Dean aeusa@aeusa.asn.au • 08 8172 6300 • aeusa.asn.au TAS Simon Bailey support@aeutas.org.au • 03 6234 9500 • aeutas.org.au VIC Elaine Gillespie melbourne@aeuvic.asn.au • 03 9417 2822 • aeuvic.asn.au WA Gary Hedger contact@sstuwa.org.au • 08 9210 6000 • sstuwa.org.au

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President’s column

From the president National TAFE Day this year is Wednesday 6 September, and we will be encouraging our TAFE members to celebrate the day both on campus and on social media.

has been one of the key factors in our previous work and current Rebuild with TAFE campaign. I thank every one of you, along with our TAFE members and allies, for continuing to lobby to achieve our goals for TAFE to return to its former place as the anchor institution of public vocational education.

The current focus on foundation skills to develop a national study on adult literacy, numeracy and digital literacy skills is another such opportunity for TAFE and the government to work together to remove Michelle Purdy AEU Federal TAFE President

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ational TAFE Day is a reminder that TAFE is the renowned leader of vocational education in Australia that offers valuable educational opportunities to students from all walks of life, from the inner city to rural and remote communities. It is also a time when we remind governments of the need to rebuild with TAFE, support and grow the TAFE workforce and renew infrastructure to meet industry standards.

The National Skills Agreements (NSA) with the states and territories are about to get underway and the AEU is hopeful for a positive outcome. Over the years, there have been many opportunities for the NSAs to improve the funding and design of public vocational education and TAFE institutes, but the potential for the next five-year agreement to be a game-changer is finally there.

Will the NSAs be the means of achieving our ask of a minimum 70 per cent guaranteed funding for TAFE across federal and state and territory governments?

Whether that is just a dream or an actual possibility due to the combined efforts of member lobbying and a change of government, will only be known closer to the January 2024 commencement date.

This has been a long-term AEU goal and

TAFE and the Albanese government have in common. TAFE Directors Australia held an event in June – TAFE Opens Doors: a focused discussion on access and equity – aimed at educators, policy makers, and other stakeholders interested in improving TAFE education and creating opportunities. Leanne Bell, faculty manager of TAFE Queensland and Reconciliation Action Plan Chair led the opening keynote panel on TAFE and First Nations Peoples and provided a clear and informative overview of how TAFE

“Culture and Country should be part of everyday teaching ...” barriers for students and skill Australia.

If the NSA can achieve this, then Minister Brendan O’Connor’s previously stated aim of developing “high quality” vocational education to “boost productivity and support Australians to obtain the skills they need to participate and prosper in the modern economy” might indeed be realised.

The AEU welcomes the government’s commitments to Closing the Gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and apprentices, which support pathways into the workforce that meet the needs and aspirations of individuals and their communities. This will only be successful when we work in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and collectively listen, respect, and learn from a culture with 65,000 years of knowledge. Culture and Country should be part of everyday teaching and it is all our responsibilities to be aware of and alleviate cultural burden in our workplaces, especially as we move closer to the referendum on Voice.

Equity is another priority that the AEU,

Queensland developed its Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and the progress they have made since their initial plan was signed off to their third RAP, which is about to commence. Bell, a former member of the AEU Federal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Committee, reported on the positive steps TAFE Queensland has made in supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to enrol when they don’t have formal ID and how with training, they have brought staff along with the organisation on their RAP journey.

Just as good policy is imperative for positive change, so too is the value of industrial agreements in bettering our working lives and as a recruitment tool.

To enact change, we need power and as a union our power comes with strong membership. To be able to continue to achieve all that we have over the past year and to achieve what has not yet been won, we call on you to advocate for membership, with numbers we can achieve so much more and work even harder to Rebuild with TAFE.

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Policy

More secure jobs, better pay How the new Fair Work Act will change working lives for TAFE teachers and support staff.

Article by Rochelle Siemienowicz

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f you weren’t sure how industrial agreements and behind-the-scenes union work affects your day-to-day work, the Albanese government’s changes to the Fair Work Act, built by the union movement, are about to make a massive difference.

“Changing governments changes people’s working lives,” says Maxine Sharkey, AEU federal TAFE secretary and general secretary of the NSW Teachers Federation. “I know that sounds grandiose, but it’s absolutely true. Think about a woman who’s now going to be able to access paid domestic violence leave, even though she’s a casual worker.

That will be a game-changer for her.”

Sharkey is talking about recent hardfought union wins for women, and the changes to the federal government’s Fair Work Legislation – the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill that passed parliament in December 2022.

These new laws represent the most significant changes to Australia’s industrial relations system since the start of the Fair Work Act in 2009 – which itself replaced the unfair employer-biased Work Choices legislation of 2005.

It’s not just unions or the government saying that these are momentous changes both to the Fair Work Act and to the workings of the Fair Work Commission (FWC). Since December, human resources departments and industrial law firms around the country have been scrambling to create fact sheets and guidelines for employers about their new contractual responsibilities and duties of care, many of which came into effect immediately, with others coming in from June to December 2023.

It’s been a fast timeline, and Sharkey says that most TAFE teachers, already overworked and trying to adapt to rapid changes and new pressures in the system, won’t yet understand the practical benefits they can extract from the new legislation, especially as it relates to gender equity and casualisation.

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Policy

“These changes are way overdue and workers deserve the dignity of reliable income and hours.”

at end of that shift or fixed term, they no longer have a job and need to beg for work.”

Soon however, if you’ve been engaged for two years as a fixed-term employee, your next contract must be offered as a permanent position.

Attracting and keeping teachers in TAFE: the crisis in trades Job security and gender equality

At the broadest level, the objectives of the Fair Work Act itself have been changed to include “promoting job security and gender equality”. For TAFE’s highly feminised and casualised workforce, and a national gender pay gap that sits at 22.8 per cent across all industries, these changes bring in benefits that will become clearer in coming years as workers see increased rights to request flexibility, job security and equal remuneration.

Flexible working arrangements can now be requested for conditions such as pregnancy, caring, childcare and disability, and also for being 55 or older.

(Women struggling through menopause, take note.) Flexibility can also be requested around experiencing family or domestic violence and caring for someone who’s been a victim of it.

The prohibition on sexual harassment in the workplace now puts the onus on employers to proactively prevent it, where previously it was treated as a type of workplace bullying. The prohibition also applies to non-employees in the workplace – students, volunteers and contractors – and a newly streamlined sexual harassment complaints process has also been brought into the Fair Work Commission to address this.

“Think of a 19-year-old who’s just got an apprenticeship in heavy vehicle mechanics,” says Sharkey. “She’s protected in a way she wasn’t before.”

Other changes that will positively impact women, parents, carers and people of any gender include: • Prohibiting pay secrecy.

• Extending anti-discrimination protection on three new grounds: breastfeeding, gender identity and intersex status.

• Changes to extending unpaid parental leave, including giving the Fair Work Commission power to deal with such disputes.

• Creation of expert panels at the Fair Work Commission to focus on pay equity in the care and community sector.

• Job advertisements can no longer include pay rates that breach the Fair Work Act or a modern award/ enterprise agreement.

Resisting casualisation, bringing back security

One of the biggest impacts for TAFE teachers and TAFE support workers will be around the changes to laws limiting fixed-term contracts to two years, after which employees must be offered permanent employment.

Effective from 6 December, this has the potential to transform employment in all institutions that rely on rolling fixed-term contracts as part of their business model, including public TAFE and university VET programs. These employers will no doubt fight for exemptions and argue the need to maintain a casual workforce, but with increasing scrutiny around wage theft and exploitation – and with this fundamental policy shift towards job security – those employers are finally on notice.

The changes to the Fair Work Act have also outlawed a key bargaining tactic first used by Murdoch University, then adopted by other post-secondary education employers: of terminating or threatening to terminate enterprise agreements as a blackmailing technique to get workers to accept reduced pay or conditions.

Sharkey says that insecure work is the situation for “far more than 50 per cent of the TAFE workforce around Australia”.

She says these changes are way overdue and workers deserve the dignity of reliable income and hours.

“At the moment, it’s akin to when you watch old movies and you see people down by the waterside competing against one another, begging to get some work for the day. Teachers might randomly get a phone call to work, and

The opposite problem – of keeping and attracting enough qualified, specialist teaching staff to meet demand in trades – is well-evidenced. Pay rates are often lower than in industry, and teacher turnover is high, especially once new lecturers realise the workload and responsibilities.

John Miles, a veteran Metal Trades teacher at TasTafe in Hobart, sees this problem and says the only way to attract teachers to trades is to offer them a good quality of life that is some compensation for pay, which is essentially going backwards against inflation: flexible conditions, good holidays and genuine support for teaching and administrative tasks.

“There’s been a massive turnover in plumbing, for instance,” says Miles.

“They’re going from a high-paid job in industry where they’ve got a vehicle and their fuel’s paid for, and then they come to TAFE and find this huge workload, all this responsibility, and constantly changing goalposts requiring them to upgrade their qualifications – I’ve had to do it four times so far and spent my own free time to complete it. A lot of people just say, ‘nup’ and they leave.”

Adding to the complexity of the Tasmanian workplace – and to Miles’ sense of general unease – is the fact that TasTAFE, as of 1 July 2022, transferred from a state public sector employer to a national system employer under the Fair Work Act. This meant there were two sets of employees on different awards and conditions, with existing “transferring staff” on a 35-hour week, with an extra week of holidays; and new staff on a higher pay rate working a 38-hour week with less generous entitlements and no choice for staff to move between the two.

Examples like this demonstrate some of the complexities of the fragmented national TAFE workforce, and the challenges that will be faced in the revamped Fair Work Commission, with its new powers to resolve disputes quickly. All agreements must now be measured against an updated Better

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Off Overall Test (BOOT) requiring agreements to have better entitlements for employees than any relevant award.

For Simon Bailey, AEU Tasmania TAFE division president, there’s good reason to hope for sensible, flexible outcomes using this “better off overall test”. In March, Bailey was involved with the successful AEU and United Workers Union (UWU) application to ensure new TasTAFE employees under the Fair Work Act were given the same terms and conditions as the non-transferring employees still under State Public Sector agreements. This came on top of Bailey’s good news in February around the union’s win of significant pay raises, one-off payments and new equipment for TasTAFE education support personnel (ESP).

“A good strong agreement has to be flexible and progressive,” says Bailey.

“It has to note that people are working differently these days. In our talks with TasTAFE they didn’t see the need for any of that. But you have to have a good agreement if you’re going to attract and keep good people in the system.”

Attracting and keeping good people

in TasTAFE is an emergency, says Bailey, and it was so even before the introduction of the enormously popular Fee-Free places. In 2021/22 TasTAFE advertised 120 teaching positions and 50 were filled, while 114 non-teaching positions were advertised and only 76 were filled. Teachers were working hours far beyond what they were paid and on the verge of burnout.

“The Fee-Free places have only emphasised our need to get more employees into the system to deliver these classes, and more personnel to support these students,” says Bailey.

Flexibility is key

In South Australia, AEU SA TAFE organiser Angela Dean reports similar problems around overwork, understaffing and TAFE SA’s mismanagement of scheduling Fee-Free programs before engaging staff.

But Dean also reports a recent win for employees around flexibility in Mechanical Engineering.

“The employer was seeking to standardise the hours of all lecturers in trades to seven hours a day, five days a

week,” Dean says. “This was not what industry wanted or what apprentices needed. We put forth a formal dispute and TAFE SA has taken a step back, so we’ve maintained our compressed work week for lecturers – where they either work a nine-day fortnight, or a four-anda-half-day week. A lot of our enterprise agreements centre on this flexibility to program delivery, because we need to be industry-based and student specific.

We can’t be too standardised – it doesn’t work in any business case.”

It’s early days for the new Fair Work Act, and the empowered Fair Work Commission, but its principles fit soundly with the realities of modern working life, and with the necessary rebuilding of the national vocational education training sector, with TAFE as its anchor.

ROCHELLE SIEMIENOWICZ is a freelance writer and editor.

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President’s column

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Funding

Promises and propositions The National Skills Agreement is the next opportunity for the government to commit to funding and restoring TAFE to its rightful place in Australian vocational education.

Article by Correna Haythorpe

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aving a government that recognises the skills crisis and that has leapt into immediate action has been a welcome change over the past year, and this year’s Federal Budget cemented the focus that government has in reskilling Australia. However, despite all these wins, pressure is still needed to achieve essential improvements required to rebuild with TAFE.

Foundations

The 2023 Budget supported the pledges made by the government since taking office and it has been reassuring for AEU members to see the acknowledgement of many of the issues that they have been campaigning for – such as a focus on foundation skills, revamping apprenticeships and most importantly centring TAFE at the heart of Australia’s VET provision.

Fee-Free TAFE is has taken off around the nation, and the federal government’s commitment to 300,000 places from next year continues the promises made a year

ago following the Jobs and Skills Summit.

However, Fee-Free TAFE does not resolve the ongoing need for strong investment in the TAFE teaching workforce and more than a decade of cuts to TAFE funding, which continue to take their toll. FeeFree TAFE is one strategy for addressing the funding issues that impact on TAFE but it cannot operate in isolation from the proper funding of course provision and a National Skills Agreement that addresses contestable funding.

In Victoria, for example, Swinburne has announced the closure of its horticulture program at the end of 2023 due to inadequate funding – despite gardeners being one of the 20 most in-need jobs, for which students in this discipline will have access to study cost-of-living loan repayment discounts and some courses included in the state government’s feefree TAFE list. Rather than come to the party to cover the shortfall, the Victorian government reduced its funding of TAFE in real terms in its May budget. The fallout of course closures has lasting effects – both in terms of student accessibility and future

demand regionally, and as the primary contributor to lost skillsets. Lost courses mean lost teachers, who often end up leaving the system for good and take with them decades of specialised knowledge not passed on to future generations.

Teachers are also still caught in the volatility of the contestable funding model still in effect, which may see them employed one term with no guarantee of future work. On top of that, cost-of-living pressures and stagnant wages across much of the country have made attracting and retaining teachers difficult, especially in the trades, where working wages far outstrip that of teachers.

In Queensland, the government announced its intent to recruit teachers from New Zealand after sticker shock at the cost of training local tradies to teach VET in schools. This is unlikely to be a sustainable solution during a worldwide teacher shortage because it fails to address fundamental issues like reducing workload and administrative burdens and increasing wages to meet cost-of-living pressures.

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Funding

National Skills Agreement

The five-year National Skills Agreement (NSA) is critical in addressing the policy deficit and funding cuts left by the former government. Priorities for the agreement look to restore essential programs and priorities that were once hallmarks of Australian vocation education and training (VET), such as “increasing access to foundation skills to promote life-long learning and ensure more Australians have the skills to take on employment”, “simplify the system and improve fairness and consistency”, and “improving the quality of VET in schools, including the development and implementation of a National VET in Schools Strategy”.

Others such as fixing the apprenticeship system by “harmonising and modernising apprenticeships to improve labour mobility and make it easier for business to take on an apprentice, knowing their training is fit for purpose” may be evolutions from past models, but there are red flags across other priorities and not one priority centres on students or teachers.

Key concerns on the NSA’s priorities includes continuing a system of VET marketisation and embedding microcredentials into the training system – both of which have strong potential to be a cash grab of public funds for private providers that provide little advantage to students. And therein lies the biggest rub in the NSA priorities: students and teachers need to be at the heart of these reforms – not short-term fixes and market gain.

NSA’s tripartite approach between industry, government and educators through their unions is an important step in the collective goal of reinvigorating TAFE and supporting students. The TAFE system still makes an estimated $92.5 billion annual contribution to Australia’s economy, at a cost of about $5.7 billion. Economically, TAFE works when properly supported and resourced and must be prioritised in any government VET and skills plan.

Essential too are the supportive structures in TAFE for staff and students alike, which are predominantly absent in the private sector. If the government is to truly meet the National Skills Agreement: Vision and Principles that the agreement “ensures that all Australians – particularly women, First Nations Australians, young people, mature age Australians, those experiencing longterm unemployment, people from culturally and linguistically diverse

TAFE BUDGET COMMITMENTS

Fee-Free TAFE from 2024 • $414.1 million over four years

for 300,000 TAFE places to be made fee free from January 2024. Budget Papers state: “The allocation of funding and places will be subject to further discussions with the states.”

National Skills Agreement (NSA) • $3.7 billion has been pointedly

retained in Contingency Reserves subject to the outcome of negotiations for a five-year NSA that will commence on 1 January 2024.

• $5.5 million has been allocated

for Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) to support negotiations.

Other Skills and Training Measures of Interest • Foundation Skills Programs –

The Foundation Skills Program will be redesigned and the new version will be implemented in July 2024, and will expand eligibility to non-job seekers – although there is no new money allocated to this.

• Foundation Skills for Your

Future Remote Community Pilots – $3.5 million over two

years from 2022–23 to extend the Foundation Skills for Your Future Remote Community Pilots by 12 months to 30 June 2024 to align with the commencement of the redesigned program.

• Nuclear-Powered Submarine

Program – initial implementation – $5.0 million over two years ($3.9 million for DEWR and $1.1 million for the Department of Education) to support the development and delivery of education, skills and training initiatives for the nuclearpowered submarine program.

• TAFE Tax Clinics – $9.0

million over four years from 2023–24 (and $1.4 million per year ongoing) for five new tax clinics from 1 January 2025 to improve access to tax advice and assistance for 2.3 million small businesses. Eligibility for funding will be extended to TAFE institutions to improve access to tax clinic services in regional areas.

Apprenticeships • Australian Skills Guarantee –

implementation – $8.6 million over four years from 2023–24 (and $1.5 million per year ongoing) to implement the Australian Skills Guarantee, ensuring one in 10 workers on major Australian Governmentfunded projects is an apprentice, trainee or paid cadet.

• Targeted Support for

Apprenticeships – $54.3 million over five years from 2022–23 to introduce a new non-financial support model for Australian apprenticeships from 1 July 2024.

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“The TAFE system still makes an estimated $92.5 billion annual contribution to Australia’s economy, at a cost of about $5.7 billion.” communities, people with disability, and regional and remote learners – have access to the education, training and support needed to obtain wellpaid, secure jobs” and “ensures that no Australians are left behind as the Australian economy transitions and adapts to structural change, including by providing opportunities for lifelong learning and foundation skills development”, then governments must

do much more and AEU members must continue lobbying for the needs of students, staff and accessible quality vocational education delivered through public TAFE.

workforce must be professionally supported with decent working conditions; restoring funding and rebuilding TAFE as the anchor institution of vocational education; and there must be urgent infrastructure improvements in teaching and learning spaces.

A strong union is essential in continuing this recovery – there’s strength and power in numbers and a continuing focus on member recruitment and organising is essential to achieve the next steps. Members must keep the pressure on to continue to be heard on the need for TAFE to be properly resourced, so together we can #RebuildwithTAFE.

Organise

The campaign for a thriving, productive, effective and sustainable TAFE includes four key priorities; contestable funding must be abolished; the TAFE teacher

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Campaign

Valuing students with disability

TAFE’s supportive structures offer unique potential as a pathway for people with disability to enter the workforce.

Article by Nicole Smith

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here are 2.1 million Australians of working age – between 15 and 64 years old – living with disability.

This group experiences higher rates of unemployment than their peers without disability (10 per cent as opposed to 4.6 per cent) and lower rates of labour force participation (53.4 per cent, compared to 84.1 per cent) and are therefore more likely to experience poverty (one in six, compared to one in 10). Reducing the unemployment and labour force participation gap between people with disability and people without disability by just one-third is reported to result in a cumulative increase of $43 billion in Australia’s gross domestic product. It’s a largely overlooked opportunity brought up by disability advocates at the 2022 Jobs and Skills Summit, and one where TAFE is uniquely placed to reduce the gap.

The Centre of Future Work estimates that the employment of TAFE graduates correlates to 486,000 jobs. Alison Pennington’s 2020 report found that the total annual benefit of TAFE returns $92.5 billion to the economy from a government investment of about $5.7 billion, and results in an estimated saving of $1.5 billion in government welfare.

Research also shows that TAFE is the preferred choice of further education for people with disability. In a 2019 study by Mission Australia, more young people with disability wanted to go to TAFE or undertake vocational education than those without disability (19.9 per cent compared with 11.2 per cent).

With properly funded TAFE and its duty of care charter that provides supportive structures to students with disabilities, there’s opportunity to build stronger pathways to learning and employment for an underemployed population, and government incentive to close the gap on $43 billion in lost workforce participation.

Raising expectations

The way that TAFE supports students along this pathway is both economically and socially critical. This begins, as disability advocate Stephanie Gotlib says, with a positive postschool transition.

“Low expectations regarding abilities and aspirations for people with disability are extremely common,” she says. “Schools are often poorly resourced, and the transition process remains highly variable across the country.”

The difference between access to supportive processes and people who recognise the contribution of people with disabilities and those who don’t is stark, and not many families have the resources or knowledge to seek out the champions when they have been told their entire lives that they shouldn’t have the same career expectations as those without disabilities. For Gotlib, government funding and support is essential for equity, but it’s also about raising society’s expectations for people with disabilities.

“For me, it’s about every child getting a fair go and having access to an education that enriches and values them and gives them opportunities,” she says.

Gotlib suggests that if TAFEs are going to position themselves as a legitimate education option available to people

with disability, the net must be cast wider than linking in with disability support providers, which only reach a small percentage.

Typically, students link in with disability liaison officers who will collaborate with them from enrolment to graduation to ensure they receive the agreed adjustments. This covers participation in classes, learning opportunities and completion of assessments.

While all Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) are required to provide “reasonable adjustments” to ensure a level playing field, currently there are no consistent guidelines around what “reasonable adjustments” are, and RTOs can deny any they deem too expensive or burdensome.

The TAFE Community Alliance says that as the public provider, TAFE has economies of scale and can utilise cross subsidisation so is more likely to be able to provide the support needed by people with disability – whether that’s access, AUSLAN translation, pre-vocational skills or individualised support.

For example, students who undertake VET programs to retrain because they have acquired a disability later in life – whether through workplace injury or other – are commonly more mature learners who have limited digital literacy and have been out of education for a long time. Undertaking specific literacy, pre-education or foundational studies prior to further training in a mainstream vocational course is an important step if they are to succeed.

For students returning to education after a long break, TAFE’s flexible learning environment allows the curriculum to be divided into smaller

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tasks that have direct relevance to a student’s chosen field.

Head teacher consultant for students with physical disability at TAFE NSW David King says TAFE offers opportunity for people to keep working through upskilling or re-skilling with the dual benefits of job-specific education and qualifications that are nationally recognised. “[I had a student who was] a truck driver who had an accident and could no longer drive. He was able to learn the company finances, and through going to TAFE was able to obtain his MYOB certificate... he was able to keep working, with his study directly relating to his life,” he says. “With TAFE, you have the surety of professional curriculum and delivery.”

Community building

Through its community and industry connections and ability to deliver government-supported programs, TAFE also serves as a direct pathway to employment for those disengaged from study or long-term unemployed, RMIT College of Vocational Education (VE) teacher and assessor Michelle McCann explains.

“There is a segment of people I teach who are either long-term unemployed or who are marginalised go along to assessment centres and do activities.

Employers are there and they pick who they want to employ, then those people come to us to get their qualifications,” she says.

Employers attending these assessment centres receive a government incentive to give these employees 20 hours a week of work while studying. This brings people into the workforce who may not otherwise have opportunities.

“Schools are often poorly resourced, and the transition process remains highly variable across the country.”

TAFE also helps with community building. A disproportionate number of disengaged students and those with disability live near the poverty line. FeeFree TAFE courses are more affordable qualifications than university degrees and increase accessibility for those on low incomes, especially people with disability. Having more people with disability in educational settings and workplaces also enables students to have important opportunities for networking and connecting with their community and a more supportive environment overall.

McCann has found that being in an inclusive environment changes views for the better: “After placement involving people with disability, we find that views are challenged and changed. Students may have no idea about the history of the disability rights movement, the medical model versus social model and after being exposed to different environments, they talk about disability in a different way.

It’s not just about their work, it’s about society,” she says.

Welcoming an array of people in educational facilities and the workplace promotes inclusion, connection and improves mental health and culture.

In addition, working with peers helps reduce isolation and fosters belonging.

For businesses, it also helps the bottom line.

TAFE has a critical role in supporting students with disability that has farreaching effects on the health, wellbeing and futures of individual Australians, democracy and the economy, and is just one of the many reasons why governments need to commit to Rebuild with TAFE.

NICOLE SMITH is a freelance writer and disability advocate living on Wurundjeri land.

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Upskilling

Creating culturally safe spaces How teaching cultural sensitivity and reducing cultural burden is everyone’s responsibility.

Article by Carissa Lee

C

ulture and Country mean a great deal to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Both are interwoven into the way we work, live and navigate relationships. They also form a foundation in education that provides greater connectivity between learning and understanding for students. There is much to be gained in embedding knowledge and learning from a 65,000-year-old culture, but consideration is needed when seeking input from colleagues or students.

As we approach the Voice referendum, the country is exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and what informing parliament could look like, but the pressures on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to guide their colleagues and students in what to

What is cultural burden?

Cultural burden refers to the additional load a person may have to take on due to their cultural background, a beyond what is expected from any other person.

Some cultural burden is specific to the expectations of being part of a particular culture, but most burden comes externally through unrecognised or unsupported additional work demands or pressures to engage with or educate others about their culture, to being “othered” or treated as a spokesperson for their entire community. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers

“… most burden comes externally through unrecognised or unsupported additional work demands or pressures …”

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do adds additional cultural burden to teachers and support staff. So, what can teachers consider in their teaching and in their workplace to make campuses culturally safe spaces?

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Upskilling

and support staff often fill the role of mentoring or taking on additional responsibilities due to the often-scarce numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers on campus. Typically, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students feel like they can only approach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers about their needs because other teachers may not offer this support and in some cases even punish them for needing additional time to meet assessments.

This support burden adds pressure to these teachers because there aren’t other teachers to meet this demand. Not being able to run a lecture or taking time off means that no one else can cover them.

Yalukit Yulendj member, TAFE lecturer and Darug woman Anissa Jones is one such example. She takes on numerous roles because she is one of the only qualified Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lecturers who can run certain classes in her TAFE. In addition, she takes on a mentoring role for students, often providing flexible learning options for students, and she isn’t remunerated for this extra time.

Jones says responsive policies that allow more flexibility and support for instances such as Sorry Business, carer responsibilities, women’s business or men’s business would help students and staff navigate their cultural burdens/ loads. Also understanding and providing supportive structures around social inequities a lot of mob face such as interactions with child protection, housing issues, mental wellness, and racism are also needed. “Yalukit Yulendj is working to address this,” she says. “But we need further support from the union to deal with the racism.”

Former TAFE Teacher and Badulaig, Meriam and Yidinji woman Carly Jia, who is principal policy analyst at the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) says Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have to deal with significant cultural loads and burdens, and this can impact other aspects of life such as work or study. “This is why Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students need to be better supported to navigate these and other commitments at the same time,” she says.

She says a common cultural burden many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people must navigate is the expectation to engage with others about

racialised topics. “You have to choose between whether or not you have the strength in you to have yet another challenging conversation about race,” she says. “For me, I take this responsibility seriously and time and time again you deal with the white tears, brown scars.”

Jia says while these conversations are often a learning opportunity for the other person, particularly in learning that “the Australian education system was never designed for First Nations people”, the onus was on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to assimilate or create change rather than the other way around.

Jones agrees, saying: “Part of my job is teaching and the other is curricula, but these courses have been written by nonAboriginal people, but have had to be taught by Aboriginal people, and it’s not culturally safe.”

Making curriculum and classrooms culturally safe

Jones says more government initiatives to attract Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers, or to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consultants who could provide guidance are the best ways to ensure curriculum is culturally safe.

“Our way of knowing, being and teaching is very different to what TAFE delivers, but we can still achieve the same outcomes, we just need to be given the opportunity to do it our way,” she says, adding that attracting more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and staff requires flexible and culturally appropriate ways of learning.

Although finding balance between adding burden to students or colleagues and working as an ally can be difficult to gauge, Jia says one way to teach content in a culturally safe way is to regularly ask the students what they need and then listen and adjust accordingly.

“Often the resources are sitting in the seats that you are teaching to, so I would encourage you to use First Nations people to help you enhance your knowledge and allow their contribution and participation in the way you design and deliver your lessons or course work,” she says.

A major burden for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, First Nations people, as well as people of colour is racism. Allyship from others

is required to spread the burden to let people know they aren’t isolated or alone and to ensure campuses and workplaces are safe places.

An example of allyship addressing this was Mount Gambier TAFE hospitality lecturer Toni Quin’s years-long campaign to remove racist and racial profiling content in South Australia’s Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) materials. In the material, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were flagged as more likely to be problematic when drinking alcohol. “I was worried we’d be perpetuating a stereotype and racist views of a culture that’s harmful,” Quin says. She decided to go to SA TAFE skills manager and chief officer to change this, who then raised the issue with government. In February this year, South Australia’s new minister for Education, Training and Skills Blair Boyer began pushing all state and federal ministers for changes to be made to RSA training courses to remove the racist content.

Quin says overall the curricula could benefit from further collaboration with Elders and other appropriate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who could better inform the way TAFE teaches students to be both culturally appropriate and to be inclusive of culture and Country without being culturally performative. “All the lecturers here make a difference in peoples’ lives. We’d be open to collaborating with Elders to interweave culture into our curricula or the way we teach,” she says.

In the lead up to the Voice

Voice could provide more opportunities for collaboration across cultures in many spaces, including classrooms and the idea of interweaving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of learning into education was seen as a potentially rewarding thing by Jia and Jones.

AEU YES Campaign lead Russell Honnery says Voice is the clearest pathway forward: “We need to be included in the constitution as the first peoples of this country, and that’s step one.”

Jia, Honnery and Jones all say they are having to navigate a lot of misinformation swirling around the Voice, which adds yet another layer of burden to the discourse. Jia’s response to this is: “This will be the last opportunity for this to happen again

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RESOURCES The Voice to Parliament Handbook by Thomas Mayo and Kerry O’Brien Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) report, June 2022, Building a culturally responsive Australian teaching workforce Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research and Diversity Council Australia report, 2020, Gari Yala (Speak the Truth): Centreing the experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians at work

in my lifetime. It is 2023 and we are still having to make decisions about whether First Nations people should be written into the Australian Constitution. The scare mongering that a Voice is going to have terrifying effects and the racism that’s already impacting First Nations people is tiring.”

“If everyone voted yes, it’ll make a great impact on education,” says Honnery. “Children and families will see that we’re fi nally recognised.”

Yalukit Yulendj, the AEU’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory committee, functions much like Voice to Parliament is intended. A broad group of representatives from across the country and education disciplines meet regularly to advise the AEU on matters that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and cultural needs should be recognised as vital to education in Australia.”

Lessening cultural burden

Jia says cultural sensitivity and being culturally responsive is something every teacher can do. “TAFE [teachers] need to think about the diversity of students and their cultural knowledge and knowledge

sources, beliefs and values, concept of kinship and sensitive issues, how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students connect to their families and communities, and the marked effect that historical and current political policies and practices have had on shaping their lives and circumstances, what constitutes racism and anti-racism strategies, what it means to act in culturally appropriate/inclusive ways and gaining the skills and knowledge to engage with Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people,” she says.

Regardless of the outcome of the Voice referendum, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and cultural needs should be recognised as vital to education in Australia.

This means more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, more flexible learning arrangements, and culturally safe resources.

CARISSA LEE is a First Nations writer and commissioning editor for The Conversation.

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People

Making more than a difference

As she prepares to hand over the reins at TAFE Queensland, CEO Mary Campbell has plenty to reflect on.

Article by Andrew Belford

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ith her retirement imminent, Mary Campbell’s 36-year journey with the state’s public VET provider may have coincided with some of the most turbulent times in the organisation’s history, but it has also left her feeling a profound sense of pride.

“I have witnessed first-hand the transformative power of education and training,” she recalls. “TAFE [campuses] across our nation are the backbone of the VET sector and provide an unequivocal commitment to accessible and quality education that empowers countless individuals to upskill, reskill, and pursue their dreams. From school leavers seeking vocational training to adults looking to enhance their careers, the public provider has been a beacon of hope, delivering the knowledge and skills necessary for individuals to thrive in a rapidly changing economy.”

This passion for TAFE has deep roots, with an appreciation for the value of education that can be traced back to her childhood. She was a product of the changes made by the Whitlam Labor government, which enabled her to become the first member of her family to go to university and left her with a deep sense of the importance of education in securing economic freedom.

After studying arts and commerce at university, she moved into the business world. She took on a broad range of roles, including periods in shipping and a job at a registered charity. But everything changed when she was 27.

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“One of the people I was working with at Trans Australian Airlines said: ‘Oh, I was talking to someone about becoming a TAFE teacher,’ and I said: ‘That's really interesting.’ I was very happy where I was, but when you're young and bold, you try different things.”

Campbell found herself teaching business and took to it straight away.

“I'm very proud of the fact that I started my life as a TAFE teacher. That's all I ever really wanted to be. There's so much joy in that early part of your career.

There were many hours of work and preparation to make sure that you were the best you could be, but you got so much help from other teachers. There was this culture that ‘we do really important work that helps people to change their lives’ – it was always there, and that culture is as strong as ever today.”

As the years passed, Campbell’s skills began to attract attention, and she frequently found herself acting in higher duties. Eventually, she left the classroom and moved into management In 2006, the Queensland Skills Plan merged six trade institutes into one. In 2007, Campbell was appointed director of education of this merged entity, which is now known as TAFE Queensland SkillsTech. Three years later she became institute director, a position she held until 2017.

In 2017, Campbell was appointed CEO of TAFE Queensland. At a time of conflicting views on the best way forward for VET and the role of the public provider, Campbell’s leadership philosophy was simple: “It becomes all about purpose. There are a lot of external forces that we can't control. Let's control what we can, and that’s our purpose, which is to help change other people's lives. That's what we are here for.

What would happen if we weren't here?

How would people from all different walks of life get these opportunities to enable them and their families to have a better life?”

COVID-19 provided one of the toughest challenges of Campbell’s time as CEO, but one of the most rewarding.

“There was no playbook. But we didn't lose any staff during that whole period, and we did a lot of innovation, an incredible amount. And we did that virtually in the first few weeks,” she says.

“Call centres working from home, payroll

“Public recognition of the value of vocational education and training is changing in this country, and I think that is a wonderful thing.” completely offline, electrical teachers in garages learning to video themselves talking to their students. It was a tumultuous time, but an incredible time for this organisation in terms of transformational change, and people did it willingly. You were steering and directing the ship, but in many ways, all of that innovation and the different ways of doing things came from our staff. It was a very empowering time for staff when you look back on it now.”

One relationship that Campbell has come to truly value over the years is the one TAFE Queensland has with its trade unions.

“I have always worked very collaboratively with unions. I'm very proud of the fact that, as a TAFE teacher, I was in the Queensland Teachers’ Union. We haven’t always agreed but have always worked together in the best interests of the employees of this organisation, and I know that that will continue at TAFE Queensland.”

As she prepares to step away, Campbell is optimistic about the future of the organisation she leaves behind.

“Public recognition of the value of vocational education and training is changing in this country, and I think that is a wonderful thing. I am happy to have played a small role in that, and I expect in the future to read much more about it,” she says.

“What we give is that quality and that care to the whole person and the wraparound services that go with helping people. In a marketised situation, that's just not available to all students.

We would be a much poorer society if everything was completely market driven, without that view to educating the whole person and to assisting them.

Apprentices often have many issues that don't have anything to do with their training, and we're available and we provide a range of support services second to none. That's why we'll always stand apart, and we should be recognised for that.”

Her legacy is one of hope for the future, of belief in lifelong learning and an indelibly strong need for public TAFE: “My vision for the future of TAFE is that we will grow bigger and stronger and that we will have a very loud voice that we continue to use. In this state alone, we've trained more than seven million people since our inception over 140 years ago. That a lot to be proud of. And so many of those people have gone on to have stellar careers and have done incredible work that's put back into the fabric of this society. TAFE underpins economic and social prosperity, not only in this state but across the nation, and we will continue to do so.”

Campbell doesn’t have any firm plans for her retirement, apart from “spending a little bit of time of learning to be still”.

But one thing will never change – her commitment to TAFE and to the public sector will remain as strong in 10 years as it is today, and as it was for the last 36.

“I won't miss the long days and the long nights and some of the worries that come with being in a role like this.

But every day I will miss the people. We have extraordinary people, and I'm very grateful that on my journey I've been able to serve and lead so many of them.

My parting advice to them is keep doing what you're doing, because it makes an incredible difference.”

ANDREW BELFORD is QTU Publications Officer.

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Iconic TAFE

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Teaching industry and the community of the food and wine region of the Riverina at the sister campuses of Leeton Griffith TAFE.

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he combination of warm climate, ample plains, and access to water in the designated Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Wiradjuri land in New South Wales affords ideal conditions for high-yield food production. Following the commissioning of Burrinjuck Dam, which created a steady supply of water to area, the neighbouring townships Griffith and Leeton were designed by architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin in 1914. Like Canberra, which was also designed by Burley Griffin, Griffith features a radial pattern at its central point, with treelined streets and parks along its main street. Right in the centre of this radial design sits Griffith TAFE. The Murrumbidgee (which means “big water” in the Wiradjuri language) is a food bowl that produces 50 per cent of Australia’s rice, 25 per cent of NSW’s fruit and vegetables and 60 per cent of NSW and 20 per cent of Australia’s wine grapes.

Renowned family-owned wineries in the region, include McWIlliams, DeBortoli, Calabria and Casella (the latter home to Yellow Tail), and one in four glasses of Australian wine comes from the Murrumbidgee. It is also home to the largest wine bottling plant in the southern hemisphere.

Frank Alampi acting head teacher, Agribusiness at NSW TAFE Leeton Griffith’s Riverina Wine & Food Technology Centre in Griffith began teaching in 2002 and has centred his career in the wine manufacturing industry. A local boy, Alampi grew up on a farm, studied horticulture at university and began his career at Toorak Wines in Leeton before discovering his love of teaching.

“Without irrigation we wouldn’t be here,” he says. “The Food and Wine Centre was set up as a partnership between industry, government and TAFE to support and train local industry.” The area is home to some of Australia’s largest and the southern hemisphere’s most technologically advanced manufacturers of food and wine, contributing $5 billion annually to the national economy.

Photography by Brett Naseby

on

Salt of the earth

Article by Diana Ward

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“Because our training is workplacebased it keeps me current with workplace practices and so students can go anywhere in the world and be confident that what they do will be translatable. They can travel anywhere in the world with this Certificate and pick up job,” he says.

“When I’m out on site I’m gathering evidence and watching students complete their tasks as part of their formal assessment process. I don’t disrupt production, production is pivotal to the wine industry so it’s the most important part so if they are too busy, I don’t take them off the line for example, just stand back and let them do their tasks while I gather more evidence that they can do it. If I take them away it slows production down and that could be costing the company tens of thousands of dollars.”

TAFE is the town

Photography by Brett Naseby

“Because our training is workplace-based … students can go anywhere in the world and be confident that what they do will be translatable.”

PICTURED (Top to bottom) Apprentice India Gready in class with Electrotechnology teacher Rodney Chant at Leeton TAFE; De Bortoli Wines processes and bottles over 60,000 tonnes of fruit each vintage at their Bilbul vineyard.

(Opposite) The township of Griffith, NSW was designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin in 1914 and today, the TAFE campus sits at its centre.

High tech wineries Alampi is deeply involved in the local wine industry not only as a trainer, but and as a vineyard owner who sits on the Riverina Wine Grapes Marketing Board. “I’m passionate about the success of the industry, not just the wineries, but the wine grape growers because if there are no wine grape growers, the wineries can’t survive,” he says. And he’s especially passionate about local Durif wine. “I think Riverina Durif is the best in the world.

Rutherglen say their Durif is the best, but it doesn’t have a patch on ours.”

One of the things he enjoys the most about the wine industry is its uptake of new technology: “I keep current with world-leading technology because our wineries are at the forefront and our wineries are world renowned. I believe Casella has one of the largest bottling plants in the world.”

“My main role is teaching Certificate III in Wine Industry Operations. We deliver that to trainees… and the main area of delivery is for the cellar and packaging sides of the business, and we do deliver in the laboratory and the viticulture sides too,” he says, adding that the competency-based training .

Alampi has seen many changes over the years both in the needs of students and industry, but also in the delivery requirements of TAFE. “My office days are mostly spent doing administrative tasks. I’m very lucky because I have an amazing education administration support person – without her I’d be lost – I think all teachers deserve to have one because the admin burden on teachers has never been higher in my 20 years at TAFE, and it’s all teachers, not just TAFE.” He hopes that with proper funding, the recent change of government and the renewed focus on trades and skills, TAFE can make it easier for teachers to teach: “I don’t enjoy the administration part clearly, but I love teaching.”

Alampi says TAFE is essential to the community because it is part of the community. “In the country and in regional areas, TAFE is the town,” he says. “A little community without TAFE wouldn’t be the same. Communities expect government to fund TAFE and when they don’t, they think they are letting the community down. It’s like if there’s one supermarket in town and you take that away, it’s the same thing with TAFE – where do companies go for their training?

“I know we have good relationships with our clients and the industry and we care about our students,” he says. “Seeing my students progress and succeed is rewarding – a lot of my former students are now managers in a winery, cellar managers, lab managers, and some went on to become winemakers and own their own businesses. Even more so is seeing those T H E AU ST RAL I A N TA FE T E AC H E R • 2 1

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that struggle get through… that’s my biggest satisfaction, when you know it’s been difficult for them, and they haven’t given up.”

Personal connection Paul Foley, head of human resources De Bortoli Wines and former head of the Riverina Food and Wine Centre at Leeton Griffith TAFE says it’s the local industry knowledge and relationships of TAFE teachers that makes TAFE such an important part of the local industry.

“The main area we work with TAFE is at the moment is our certificate-based training in food processing or wine operations and they are on the job,” he says.

Typically new employees are signed up for a traineeship within their first six months of employment.

“Onsite training is important because it’s relevant to what we are doing and for students,” Foley says. “They are actually doing the process, there’s no major disruption and they are getting better and better as they are receiving training as they are doing [and] learning.”

De Bortoli Wines employs 500 people across 11 sites, with additional people during vintage harvesting. Even though the qualifications employees received make then employable anywhere, Foley says the benefits to the company are clear. “The relevance of the training makes them better and more productive employees, what that means for us is that we have a competent person running say a packaging line, it’s less likely there will be mistakes made, loss of product or issues, which makes it incredibly valuable to business,” he says.

Local knowledge

Keeping industry humming

Over his and the company’s long connection to TAFE, he has seen TAFE distance from industry and he’s hoping that stronger industry connection will return: “When I was at TAFE it was one-stop-shop for industry and could provide all your training needs with one phone call. Now it’s lost that critical connection to industry and is much more generic and aimed at ‘how can we best service individual community members’ as opposed to being a running partner for industry.”

Knowledge of the local industry is something he sees as essential to local industry training, and that’s why De Bortoli works with Alampi at Griffith TAFE. “Frank [Alampi] comes from industry, so he connects with our people,” he says. “With vintage we have a finite 10 to 12 weeks and we only have one opportunity per year where take about 60,000 tonnes of fruit in and process that. We need a crew with basic competencies, so we deliver that two-week training upfront, and Frank helps us with that. That’s a non-critical period where we can take people off the job but once we get started, we can’t take people off the line, and Frank understands that.

He says Alampi is someone not only committed to really good outcomes, but also has that industry knowledge that is priceless: “TAFE’s not about the buildings, it’s about the people.”

Rodney Chant, electrotechnology teacher at NSW TAFE’s Leeton Campus has taught full time for 17 years and part-time 15 years prior to that. He’s Leeton born and bread and began his first apprenticeship in the local industry at Letona Foods and has worked for many companies before teaching. Renowned in the region, he’s best known for breakdowns – his ability for fixing things and problem solving, “which I use a lot in my TAFE format,” he laughs.

A licensed electrician for close to 40 years, he teaches all aspects across all topics of the electrical trade: “I have been a single teacher here, teaching all the apprentices for the past 10 years and teach some industry in Cert IV for electricians and do electrical safety training to industry and councils.”

One of the biggest partners for Leeton electrical is Sunrice. Chant has a 25-year relationship with the company and does safety training there five or six times per year. He also does pop up 3-4-hour courses such as lockout tag out. “This training in industry gives me a really good connection with industry, not just the electrical side of it, but the training people, management, the operators and it’s really good insight for me that I get to learn how all their machines work,” he says. “[It’s important] that I get to learn all their equipment because I need to teach the operators on how to make it safe, which then I can bring all that knowledge back into the classroom and explain to the students why we need to know every aspect of our trade, and I can directly relate that to where they work.

“Teaching every topic to the students is fairly vast and you need to make that relevant to the students and my biggest advantage here at Leeton TAFE is all my apprentices, I have taught their bosses and most probably have taught their bosses before that,” he laughs.

Over the four years of the apprenticeships, he has 120 apprentices and 90 per cent of them come from industry rather than domestic and commercial. “The MIA is a food bowl to Australia, so we deal with everything from the water distribution to the crops – the harvesting side and storage sheds and then we have all the production side and then the processing. Baiada for example deal with 1.2 to 1.5 million chooks per week, Sunrice deal with 400,000 to 1.2 million tonnes of rice every year, the wine industry is huge

PICTURED (below) Frank Alampi, acting head teacher, Agribusiness at Griffith TAFE; (opposite, top to bottom) Paul Foley, head of human resources De Bortoli Wines; Rodney Chant electrotechnology teacher at NSW TAFE’s Leeton Campus

Photography by Brett Naseby

Iconic TAFE

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He says to counteract skills shortages in his area, trades need to be introduced properly in schools, but industry needs to put on apprentices too: “There’s been a long history from industry that ‘we’ll just employ one when we want one’ and it’s only been in the last 10 years that they aren’t there to employ. It is the industry’s problem, not TAFE’s as our job is to train those that industry puts on, and if they aren’t putting on apprentices, who is there to train?”

Industry has thankfully started to tweak and in 2023 his intake doubled, with some companies now putting on an apprentice every year rather than every three years.

with the number of grapes that crushed and produced in this area.

The capabilities of some of these bottling lines are 40,000-50,000 bottles an hour.

“TAFE and trades are important to the community because everything [whether imported or not] needs to be installed or maintained or repaired physically by people. People think that electricians run cables and put in lights and power points, but I do not teach my students how to install power points,” he says. “As the electrical trade has expanded past the traditional wires and motors – we are looking after cabling, the motors, automation, communication, solar and now battery storage.”

In the wine industry, nearly every stage runs off electricity, from when the grapes turn up and are crushed, filtered and chilled, then once the wine is put into the tanks: “there’s lots of solenoids, refrigeration equipment and they do a lot of circulating, all those portable pumps are a lot of work for the electricians,” he says.

“The entire bottling line is another whole process in itself. Machines wash the bottles, dry the bottles, put the caps on, label the bottles and they have to the correct date, stamp and coding and all of that is looked after by the electricians… and there’s also warehousing that also has electrical needs from lighting to machinery.”

Photography by Brett Naseby

Teaching for the future Known as the region’s electrical safety expert, Chant is determined that his students know not just the how, but the why of their jobs. “Sometimes directions given by management aren’t safe or workable solutions and as an electrician you need to know that,” he says, adding that knowing what causes a problem is the key to fixing problems safely.

“I chose to become a full-time teacher for a lifestyle change and that worked really well for the first five to seven years until the other teacher retired and I ended up with all of the work,” he says. This year he finally has another teacher on board to share the load – a difficult task because pay rates compared to electrician salaries and the national scarcity of trades teachers meant finding someone took time.

He says that working in a small campus and being a union member has helped him through not having electrical colleagues. “As a single teacher you start to feel isolated and

More than a job

“TAFE’s not about the buildings, it’s about the people.” the union gives you someone in your corner with a different perspective,” he says, adding that at Leeton TAFE, staff all have morning tea or lunch together “and we solve a lot of our own problems by discussion, and we learn from each other”.

As a TAFE teacher he says the respect he gets from community is good, but the biggest reward is when one of the apprentices he trained is now putting on an apprentice and seeing his students succeed: “Seeing some of apprentices go from a very low level to coming out with a qualification is probably my proudest moments,” he says.

Third year electrical apprentice India Gready grew up on a 15-acre horse and hay farm in the Leeton area and has been riding since she can remember.

She also competed internationally in eventing and dressage and has represented New South Wales. She works for Murrumbidgee Irrigation.

“I really like being an electrician because it’s out in the field and very hands-on. It’s also a growing and diverse industry, you can do really whatever you want in electrical because pretty much everything is becoming electrical,” she says.

Gready got a job out of school but wanted more than just a job. She found her calling through electrician friends.

“They all thought it was a great job and it seemed like something I would like to do,” she says. “It’s interesting… you don’t come to work and always do the same thing. I really like fault-finding, figuring out why the problems exists and how to fix it.”

Growing up she didn’t particularly enjoy school, so coming back to study was a little daunting – especially in her apprenticeship as you need to be good at mathematics – but the structure of one day at TAFE and combining that with work she finds much more manageable: “What I learn at TAFE, I then go to work and put what I’m learning into practice right away.”

“I’m definitely supported at TAFE. I get treated the same as all the boys, which is good, I’m not singled out,” she says, as the only woman in the class since day one. She’s currently looking forward to completing her apprenticeship and passing her capstone assessment and is even considering further employer-supported study at TAFE, such as engineering.

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Workplace culture

Developing workplace culture to move from competence to excellence Behavioural changes that acknowledge attention bias and daily stressors can support a stronger, more inclusive workplace culture.

Behavioural Step 1: Ensure the basics

It’s important to ensure that the physiological needs of your team members are being met. This includes providing access to food and water and encouraging regular breaks for lunch, exercise and mental rejuvenation. By creating an environment that supports these basic needs, you can help your team members stay energised, focused and productive.

Behavioural Step 2: Create a safe space

Article by Helen Storr

W

hen we notice something, we tend to recognise it more commonly.

For example, if you notice a turtle in the water, you may then see many other turtles near the original turtle, but miss the first one and you may not look for others – what we pay attention to we get more of, and what we ignore, we miss.

As teachers and students are dealing with increasing work and life stresses, how can we refocus and reboot into paying attention to moving from competence to excellence without losing the compassionate support required in the workplace and classroom?

To foster a culture of continuous improvement, implementing small behavioural steps that involve everyone, including staff, students, peers, colleagues and others may be beneficial. By taking these steps together, you can ensure that everyone is on board and moving forward together.

Consider both the physical and psychological safety of your people.

Physical environments impact on how we feel. Make sure your environments are bright, open and stimulating, along with being safe and secure. When psychological safety is cultivated, people feel included and accepted; they feel safe to learn, contribute and finally challenge the status quo.

Behavioural Step 3: Check in

Humans crave for and seek out a place they feel they belong. This is why people from the same cultures or communities commonly group together and why likeminded people seek each other out. To ensure that everyone is feeling a sense of belonging, make sure you check in with people regularly. Do an ecological check – Are you okay? How do you feel? What’s going on for you? Show them you care and they are “your people”.

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Behavioural Step 4: Be inclusive

Establish and communicate clear and visible expectations, regularly articulate inclusivity expectations to your team members, and don’t hesitate to call out any behaviours that don’t align with them. By consistently reinforcing a culture of respect and inclusivity, you can help create a workplace where everyone feels valued and supported.

Use phrases like “we don’t tolerate such behaviour in our workplace” to send a strong message.

Behavioural Step 5: Encourage listening

Create awareness and protocols around ensuring every voice is heard. Invite people to voice their opinions when you notice they are holding back. Don’t be afraid to balance the dominant voice.

Behavioural Step 6: Take note

Be aware of your language and the messages you are sending out through your words. Reframe failure and mistakes into opportunities for learning and growth by acknowledging rather than being defensive. Be transparent in order to build trust and ensure your communication is open and respectful.

Behavioural Step 7: Positive reinforcement

Build a group think around building self-esteem. Focus and share individual strengths. Introduce a culture of sharing compliments. “Thank you for …” or “I liked the way you …”. Make them explicit to behaviours rather than “good job”, so people embed the positive behaviour.

Create positive conversations in the lunch room.

Behavioural Step 8: Encourage collaboration

Create projects that are meaningful and purposeful with clear success measures. Ensure the projects are driven and created by those doing the work.

Encourage a culture of collaboration rather than top-down direction. Ask “what is important to you?” Validate the projects and the success no matter how small.

“While it may require courage, if teachers don’t take the lead, who will?”

Behavioural Step 9: Share successes

Celebrate, acknowledge, reward and share successes within the workplace.

Acknowledge the value of all input.

This can be through presenting projects with the whole group or celebrating as a group or displaying projects or many other creative ways.

Once you have captured the attention of your team members or students through these behavioural changes and by setting high standards and continuously challenging your team to improve, you can create a culture of excellence in the workplace. Encourage your team members to go further and to continuously seek out opportunities for growth and development.

This is where the importance of where we are focusing our thinking comes in to play. As the pandemic becomes endemic for example, we must reset our selfefficacy and rebuild our confidence to not just survive, but to flourish.

As we move ahead, it’s crucial to promote a growth mindset that embraces creativity, imagination and opportunities. While it may require courage, if teachers don’t take the lead, who will? We carry a great responsibility in providing this to the future generations we are tasked to serve.

Our primary focus should be on cultivating resilience and promoting growth mindsets, not just for our own benefit, but also for the benefit of the students we serve. Resilience entails having the ability to withstand and recover swiftly from adversities, while a growth mindset is the belief that one’s intelligence and abilities can be enhanced through deliberate efforts and actions.

It involves embracing challenges, persevering through obstacles, recognising the value of effort, learning from constructive criticism and seeking inspiration. These are the traits we hope to instil in the next generation.

Where should we direct our attention?

Here are six suggestions: 1 Clarify your purpose. Understand the reasons behind your actions, what matters to you and what motivates you.

2 Monitor your language and its impact on your thinking. The more you try not to think about something, the more you will. Avoid negative interactions and use positive, proactive language.

3 Use dynamic, active language by turning static nouns into active verbs. For example, rather than “having anxiety”, say “feeling anxious at the moment”. This empowers you to make choices and take action.

4 Minimise judgemental language.

Avoid using words like “good”, “bad”, “right” and “wrong”.

5 Expand your questioning. Use openended, broad questions instead of closed ones. For instance, ask “What are the possible options here?”

6 Emphasise continuous improvement.

Focus on what you do well and how you can do even better.

To summarise, building workplace cultures that move from competence to excellence starts with focusing on our internal thoughts, feelings and beliefs, and how they influence our behaviours at work. We must identify the behaviours that need to be ingrained and embraced in our workplace and also recognise the underlying physiological factors that drive our actions. Developing awareness of these factors is the first step toward building resilience and a growth mindset, enabling us to strive for improvement and excellence.

HELEN STORR is VET Development Centre (VDC) facilitator. As a leader in professional development of the VET sector, the VDC prides itself on delivering quality, professional and relevant programs for the vocational education workforce in Victoria and across Australia.

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Around Australia

Around Australia ACT Karen Noble FOLLOWING productive meetings between the Union and new leadership at Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), enterprise bargaining continues with challenges and some hopeful developments. CIT instigated a creative proposal with a new approach to annualised teaching hours, paid nonattendance and timely payment of overtime.

This was met with a mixed response from teachers, indicative of the diversity of our workforce and levels of exhaustion from excessive workloads. Subsequently the AEU offered its own proposal, working with some themes that have emerged from schools bargaining and adapted with the input of CIT teacher members.

Progress on workload discussions has been disrupted by changes to CIT leadership.

In the interim, CIT have determined to stand up a workload reduction taskforce over a nine-month period to identify and implement workload reductions.

Consultation with members remains ongoing as we keep meaningful workload reductions as our key target.

Teaching departments are stretched and struggling as budget constraints, a shortage of administrative staff and technical support and no additional resources to deliver Fee-Free TAFE has created significant and snowballing stressors. In addition, the volume of work for training

package updates adds strain to very limited teacher time.

Our union’s stance against the increasing marketisation of the VET sector was highlighted when we learned the outcome of a recent tender process to deliver vocational training in ACT public secondary schools. CIT was not successful in this process, which means a reduction in its offerings to public school students. That competitive tenders can produce outcomes like this, undercutting years of relationship building that promote TAFE pathways for students, is of immense disappointment to the CIT community.

The range of issues experienced by CIT has been raised at several constructive meetings between the AEU and the ACT Skills Minister, CIT CEO and CIT Board Chair.

The AEU has represented a strong and consistent vision for an improved CIT, which must include: • reform of training packages, competency-based training and compliance • support for Fee-Free TAFE with adequate administration and facilities for students and teachers • teacher workload review • an EA with pay increases and better processes to capture teacher work • management stability and educational leadership.

The ACT Government continues its capital investment in TAFE with the development of a new campus at the Woden town centre. The new campus is scheduled for completion in 2025. The AEU continues to

contribute to consultations around education spaces, workstations for staff and parking, among other issues.

As we press onwards with significant challenges looming on the horizon, a revitalised ACT Branch TAFE Council is a reason for hope: we recently held our best attended meeting ever, indicating that our members remain resilient, creative, and collaborative as we build a better CIT.

NSW Phillip Chadwick THE 2022 to 2023 period is likely to be recorded as one of the most significant periods of NSW public education history.

In the post-schools space, 12 years of neglect has left the public provider of vocational education TAFE NSW on the brink. The events of the past year and the departure of NSW Coalition government brings great hope and expectation of better days ahead.

Negotiations for a replacement TAFE Commission of NSW Teachers and Related Employees enterprise agreement (EA) were finalised at the start of March. TAFE NSW employees covered under that EA voted to accept the pay deal offered by their employer. Whilst not busting the Perrottet government’s wages cap the agreement reached passed on a 2.53 per cent increase to salary and allowance over 12 months and provided a one-off $1500 back payment from the expiry date of the EA (30 June 2022) to 1 February 2023 for all employees covered under the EA up to step 13 classification.

Employees on promotional scales such as head teachers received the actual amount of back pay for the period.

The EA also provides significant improvements for TAFE teachers in areas of: conversion of temporary employees to permanent

following 12 months of continuous engagement; increased use of permanent full-time and permanent parttime positions in preference to casual; and improvements in leave (from 10 to 20 days per year) for matters arising from domestic and family violence in which part-time casual teachers could access paid leave of this type for the first time. The changes around the use of part-time casual and casual employment, while significantly improved, still do not go far enough as yet there is no provision for the direct conversion of long-term casuals to permanent positions.

NSW TAFE teachers joined their schools colleagues with a focus on changing the NSW government in the NSW election. Federation members descended on prepoll and polling day booths in key marginal seats in their hundreds. Under the banner of the “More Than Thanks” campaign teachers once again made a difference and the Perrottet government was cast into opposition by NSW voters. The hard work now begins to rebuild, no one should be so naive to believe that 12 years of white anting and neglect can be reversed overnight, and no one should be so naive to believe that a change of government is the key to success. NSW TAFE teachers and students however can take some solace from other jurisdictions such as South Australia following similar election outcomes.

QLD David Terauds CQU bargaining is in hiatus in order to facilitate constructive outcomes. The key sticking point remains salary increases, with the CQU remaining in significant financial stress and maintaining that increases of 1, 2, and 2 per cent are all that it can afford. TAFE Queensland

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educators have been offered 4, 4 and 3 per cent over a threeyear agreement with a cost-ofliving adjustment to be applied annually under the state wages policy. This will further exacerbate the disparity of remuneration levels currently existing between the two public providers with CQU VET educators behind in terms of gross pay. The hiatus allows for the CQU to assess the ongoing financial context to consider a revised pay offer and for the unions to seek additional support for the university in the postCOVID period. To progress key initiatives that the parties have settled on, Memoranda of Agreement are being drafted to affect certain changes or introduce new classifications.

These will remain in effect until a replacement agreement is certified.

At TAFE Queensland formal bargaining for a replacement TAFE Queensland Educator’s Certified Agreement began on 23 March. This follows the development of the log of claims, which commenced in the second half of 2022 with a listening tour of branches and more than 200 member engagements from individual consultations or emails, branch meetings, TAFE Council, or other interactions. Ten themes emerged from these engagements, including: 1. Administration 2. Allowances 3. Industrial matters (e.g. class sizes, hours of work, meal breaks, etc.)

4. Hybrid/Online/Virtual modes of learning 5. Permanent employment 6. Professional development (including release to industry) 7. Professionalism and autonomy 8. Safety 9. Salaries 10. Workload.

Prioritised using a members survey of over 40 per cent of

members from across TAFE Queensland, the survey found that workload and industrial matters were priority matters to be addressed in the replacement agreement.

Specific issues that rated highest include: • an urgent need to undertake succession planning for TAFE Queensland’s workforce • an urgent review of the currency systems • ensuring more time to focus on students, and less time on administration and compliance tasks • review of the Education Team Leader position • recognition of conditions (like class sizes) for the delivery of online/virtual/ hybrid classes.

The outcomes of the survey and the draft log were provided to the QTU TAFE Council on 18 March for endorsement. Deputy general secretary Brendan Crotty, TAFE organiser David Terauds and research officer Dr Craig Wood are attending the weekly meetings of the single bargaining unit.

SA Angela Dean DESPITE the refocus on rebuilding TAFE SA as the state’s key provider of quality VET, there is still no clear directive from the current state government to ensure quality education is the focus of all major decision-making bodies at TAFE SA. There is still a hyper focus from the employer on all educational program areas meeting unrealistic budget efficiency targets that do not align with the employee entitlements they currently have.

Educational staff at TAFE SA continue to report excessive workload issues due to a systemic ignorance of the TAFE SA Educational Staff Enterprise Agreement 2022 and TAFE SA’s own policies and procedures in addressing their ongoing workloads concerns.

Despite many grievances and disputes lodged by the AEU, the employer continues a perfunctory consultation process on lecturer workload allocations, while steaming

ahead with their business plans that force continued excessive workloads on all educational staff.

Due to this, on 2 May the AEU SA Branch launched the 21 & Done campaign. The campaign is aimed to address the ongoing wilful ignorance of all educational staff workload entitlements as educators are being pressured to work above their benchmark of 21 hours of instruction and assessment, developing resources, providing student counselling, conducting RPL & RCC assessments, undertaking quality assessment and audits, undertaking industry engagement, undertaking professional development, and undertaking program coordination duties in their own time.

TAFE SA educational staff are now working an average of 10 unpaid hours each week.

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Around Australia

be carried out by lecturers in the 14 hours of administrative time they have allocated each week.

This is an unattainable business model developed by the current leadership at TAFE SA and is in breach of lecturers’ industrial entitlements. Our 21 & Done campaign highlights the excessive workloads all educational staff face at TAFE SA. It also draws attention to the inconstancies in how workload allocations are applied across educational programs.

Lecturers are sick and tired of TAFE SA’s business models banking on their goodwill.

Lecturer goodwill to ensure that their student resources are prepared for their classes each day, despite the number of unpaid hours this takes each week. Lecturer goodwill giving extra time outside of class to students struggling with the course work that is assigned to less teaching hours than is recommended for successful completion to the subject.

Lecturer goodwill following up student administrative issues that impact students’ successful completion of classes and qualifications.

Lecturer goodwill undertaking additional unscheduled classes, covering their fellow program lecturers off work due to illness or short staffing.

Or any lecturer goodwill in undertaking all or any of the duties listed under clause 5.3.4 of our current EA, outside of paid hours each week.

During these times, we are still having to continually challenge TAFE SA to adhere to industrial agreements to ensure that we do not continue to lose more educational staff due to burnout. The AEU SA Branch will continue the fight for our members' rights and the respect that they deserve.

We will continue the fight for a well-funded and quality education-focused TAFE SA.

TAS Simon Bailey ENTERPRISE bargaining continues at TasTAFE although claims have been lacking in detail and the AEU questions TasTAFE’s intent in not providing their log of claims (LoC) until after they have received all party’s LoC. We are currently reviewing this position and are not intending to provide our LoC unless TasTAFE is willing to put theirs on the table as well.

TasTAFE hired a mainland recruitment agency to try to secure the staff it requires.

Management has claimed the agency found 41 people to fill positions, but to date only three have met the requirements to be short-listed for interview due to changes in the Fair Work Act (FWA).

The transition from the public service to a nongovernment business has meant that we now have a two-tiered employment system – existing employees who are still working under their state awards and agreements and new

employees who are employed on the substandard Fair Work Award.

After obtaining legal advice on options that could be explored under the FWA, AEU TAFE Executive requested that the AEU make an application under FWA to have the commission instruct TasTAFE to employ all employees under the existing awards and agreements until a new agreement is negotiated. A joint application was made by the AEU and United Workers Union in mid-2022 with the hearing taking place in November 2022. On March 24 this year it was announced the entitlements fought for by the unions had now been won for all employees, and TasTAFE management would be forced to return annual leave and reduce working hours for new teachers. The ruling is the first of its kind in Australia, with a contested application for a consolidation order having never been granted until now.

The ruling represented a huge win for workers’ rights, and teachers employed since 1 July 2022 will have their pay remain the same but their

hours dropped from 38 to 35 per week, bringing this in line with employees on the old agreement. New TasTAFE teachers would have also received an extra week of leave – creating equity with existing workers. It was the Fair Work Commission’s view that it was in the public interest that these changes were made.

The commissioner ruling was made against five categories, he considered how the ruling would affect the employees, factors relating to the business and delivery, productivity impacts, and in the public interest and he ruled in favour on all five areas. The ruling has shown that what TasTAFE and the state government was doing was not in the best interest of current and new employees and not in the best interest of the public.

However, as always, a win can be challenged and TasTAFE has made an application to have a stay placed against the ruling and has applied to appeal. The AEU has raised concerns about the implications of TasTAFE’s appeal on the education sector and TasTAFE employees’ rights.

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VIC Elaine Gillepsie AFTER almost 12 months of weekly negotiations for a new industrial agreement at the 12 standalone TAFEs, our members' key claims to address excessive workload, insecure employment, pay rises, teacher qualifications and professional respect have yet to be addressed.

From the commencement of the negotiations, our members were very clear in their intent to change the form of our agreement from an outdated multi-employer agreement (MEA) to a single interest agreement that gives our members in the standalone TAFEs the ability to take action. New Industrial Relations (IR) legislation, which have come into effect this year, have changed the landscape. MEAs in their current form will cease to exist, providing opportunity for change. Despite receiving

support from the Victorian Government to negotiate for a single interest agreement, TAFE employers and their representative, the Victorian TAFE Association (VTA), have made it clear they do not wish for the form of the agreement to change. The Union has launched a majority support petition to bring all the standalone TAFEs to the bargaining table to negotiate a single interest agreement.

Dual-sector members are looking at the wins that were gained in the recent Swinburne Agreement, in particular the 17 per cent superannuation, as the starting point for their negotiations.

Negotiations for a new RMIT Vocational Education Teachers Agreement commenced on 11 May, following a year’s postponement at the request of RMIT due to the appointment of a new chancellor and vice chancellor. In the interim, an administrative adjustment

gave a 2 per cent pay rise in November 2022, with all entitlements, benefits and protections outlined in the current enterprise agreement remaining in place after expiry date, until a new agreement is in place.

Like RMIT, Victoria University (VU) was to commence bargaining midyear 2022, however VU did not indicate a delay or provide staff with an explanation. This has resulted in VU members leaving for other TAFE institutes or back into industry to get a pay rise.

Federation University’s agreement will expire later this year with the log of claims currently being developed.

Last year the Office of TAFE Coordination and Delivery (OTCD), which now sits in the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions, planned to make changes to TAFE legislation that would focus on the development of a TAFE network. This change was as a recommendation in

the Macklin review to address the competition between TAFE institutes that resulted from the marketisation of VET funding. Due to the Victorian State election in November 2022, the legislation has not yet passed. OTCD now hope to have it passed by the end of this year.

The purposed benefits of a Victorian TAFE network are to enable: Quality and workload improvements by: • collaborative design and development of TAFE curriculum • consistency of course materials and teaching resources • ASQA Reregistration and compliance • data collection and analysis etc.

There are other initiatives that will gradually be rolled out across all 12 standalone TAFE institutes and to a degree the four dual-sector universities such as shared operational systems, IT and licences.

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WA Gary Hedger WA TAFE colleges are experiencing a surge in enrolments in Fee-Free courses. More than half of the 18,800 Fee-Free places provided under the agreement have already been snapped up

by Western Australians, with almost 13,000 enrolments in semester one, highlighting the demand for and the importance of access to free education and training.

The Free in '23 initiative, designed to boost skills development in priority areas, is already achieving results. Qualifications in early childhood education and care; aged and disability care; nursing and technology have seen the strongest enrolments, adding much needed skills for these priority industries.

Women and young people aged 15 to 24 in particular are enjoying the benefits of Fee-Free training for full qualifications, making up 66 per cent and 41 per cent of the cohort respectively.

These early results are promising, providing opportunities for priority groups, and training workers for critical industries such as the care sector, technology and digital, hospitality and tourism, construction, agriculture and defence.

However, without funding for additional resources (classrooms and staffing) to service the additional places, colleges are struggling to keep up, with staff shortages in numerous areas.

This has resulted in work overload for TAFE lecturers in the form of larger classes (which increases the amount of assessment time and

marking) and a reduction in delivery time for units to accommodate the increased enrolments with available classrooms and staff. This is causing burnout amongst staff who are doing large amounts of unpaid work to meet the expectations of students and satisfy the additional requirements of evidence for auditing.

The total relaxation of COVID-19 rules and removal of COVID-19 leave (exception for persons who have exhausted all other forms of leave) is causing some confusion and apprehension amongst TAFE staff. This is due to the removal of mandatory reporting and notification of COVID-19 cases amongst staff and students. This has resulted in staff and students not being notified that they have been in close contact with persons who have tested positive

and still attending classes and work. This contradicts current work health and safety requirements that require the employer to provide a safe working environment. The response silence is deafening.

Shortly, the Union will begin to canvas members regarding formulating our log of claims for a replacement General Agreement. This is going to be very difficult due to the result of the almost 12 months-late registration of a replacement agreement after the expiry of the previous General Agreement, meaning a number of changes in the Agreement have not been fully rolled out and lecturers have not seen the full impact on the changes to their working conditions to see if they are an improvement, or need to be modified to get the intent correct.

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TAF074

Communities deserve TAFEs with State-of-the-art facilities More teachers and support staff More courses to choose from And guaranteed government funding.

© AEU 2022 Authorised by Kevin Bates, Federal Secretary, AEU 120 Clarendon Street, Southbank, Victoria, Australia 3006 T H E AU ST RAL I A N TA FE T E AC H E R • 3 1

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VET NATIONAL TEACHING & LEARNING CONFERENCE

17 & 18 AUGUST 2023

MELBOURNE CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION CENTRE

FROM COMPETENCE TO EXCELLENCE The 18th VET National Teaching & Learning Conference 2023 to be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre promises to be the biggest in-person VDC conference.

Over 2 days there will be an abundance of professional learning opportunities with a focus on VET practitioners, as well as a stream of sessions featuring VET applied research for other VET Sector professionals.

For the first time, the VET National Teaching & Learning Conference will be held in conjunction with the WorldSkills Australia National Championships.

The VET Development Centre (VDC) has partnered with WorldSkills Australia to provide VDC conference delegates with access to international WorldSkills guests and participate in bespoke guided tours of the championships at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

VDC has a proud 17-year tradition of providing one of Australia’s leading Teaching & Learning Conferences.

Join us for this highly regarded and anticipated event.

FEATURING KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Jacqui Cooper

5-time Olympian & 5-time World Champion

Louise Mahler

Gravitas Expert & Keynote Speaker of the Year

Aimee Stanton

The Lady Tradie, Plumber turned Tiny House Builder

Nasir Sobhani The Streets Barber,

Hairdresser for the homeless

Susan James Relly Professor in Vocational Education, Univ. of Adelaide

KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS / EXPERT PANEL / TEACHING & LEARNING WORKSHOPS

REGISTER ONLINE NOW Scan this code with your smartphone camera.

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APPLIED RESEARCH SESSIONS / NETWORKING FUNCTION GUIDED TOURS OF THE WORLDSKILLS AUSTRALIA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS Learn more: www.vdc.edu.au/vdc-2023-teaching-learning-conference - or email: info@vdc.edu.au

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