The Greens recently announced a radical TAFE reform plan which would include making it free across the state.
Australian Greens Senator for WA, Jordon Steele-John announced the plan to reverse the downward trend in enrolment, reduce the burden of debt and improve dwindling job prospects for current and future students.
Senator Steele-John said Premier Mark McGowan had done nothing to solve the TAFE crisis in WA that was created by the previous Liberal government under Colin Barnett.
“Freezing fees at their current unsustainably high levels is not a solution, and frankly all it’s doing is locking in the problems for years to come,” he said.
“Enrolments across TAFE in WA have dropped more than 12 per cent in the last 5 years whilst fees for some courses have almost tripled, leaving students who chose to continue studying with much higher debts.
"Free public schooling is at the heart of Australian education.
“Now that access to post-school qualifications are essential to the jobs of the future, the Greens want to bring TAFE into line with primary and secondary schooling by making it free.”
Mr McGowan said when he came into office, TAFE fees had been frozen and would remain so for at least the term of his government.
"When the Liberal Party were in office they put them up by 500 percent, so we have managed to freeze them and we funded it with the foreign bio surcharge on residential property and we will look at further measures we can put in place in the future,” he said.
South Regional TAFE managing director Duncan Anderson said there was a lot of heavily subsidised training around in areas that best supported the state’s economy.
“The current funding model sees the courses that are the highest priority to the state receive the most generous levels of subsidies,” he said.
“We always strive to do more and we’d love for more people to know about TAFE and the benefits of a vocational pathway and we’ll keep trying to do that.”
Mr Anderson said fees weren't an issue with enrolments steady.
“It appears to be on track with last year, which we’re really happy about, students are coming back and trusting us with the privilege to give them the skills they need for their future,” he said.
“It says industry is still supporting us because the apprentice and trainee numbers are looking like they were last year.
“Across the college our number of hours grew in almost every single area (last year), fees aren’t a deterrant because people are still enrolling.”