Page 311 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 1991
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there were 19,000. That is a very substantial decline over a much longer period than this Government has been in office. When you look at the Grants Commission report on TAFE in the ACT you can understand why that decline has occurred. The decline is substantially in the area of the less essential courses and the recreational courses. Perhaps there was a time, when this Territory was living in easier days, when it was easy for citizens to enrol for cooking courses and the like - these courses are quite commonplace throughout Australia - but beyond any doubt the stage came when it became hard to sustain that level of course.
There is an outcome of this that concerns me. Student numbers, as I have indicated, have dropped considerably; but the ones most affected by this are women students. Whereas in 1985, on my figures, 54.6 per cent of students were women, in 1989 51 per cent of students were women. That means that 2,400 more women than men have dropped out of TAFE courses. There is some significance in that. I would want to know what the courses were before I claimed that as having enormous significance; nevertheless I believe that it is important that women have access to as many courses as possible because I believe that we all accept the position that they have for too long been under-represented in many education and work sectors. So I would ask the Chief Minister, as the Minister responsible for TAFE and for TAFE authorities, to look at that. It is not a problem that they have created, let me acknowledge again; but it is an outcome of the pressures on TAFE.
If we look at one sector of TAFE, that of apprentices, we see this disparity continuing. I want to acknowledge the efforts I have seen over quite a few years by governments and TAFE authorities to redress the imbalance in the representation of women in apprenticeship courses. My comment would be how difficult it is to change that; but we must continue and perhaps we must accelerate our efforts to see that women are more evenly represented in the apprenticeship area of TAFE.
The figures for the 1988-89 financial year indicate that there were 1,509 males in apprenticeship courses and just 285 women. That disparity is even more dreadful when we note that, of that 285, 212 were in hairdressing courses. So we have barely begun to redress the balance and to have women better represented in traditionally male apprenticeships.
Mr Humphries: Or vice versa.
MR WOOD: Yes, but there is a much greater range of courses that women are not being enrolled in. The reverse does not particularly apply for men. Let me answer your question. There were 33 male hairdressing apprentices. It does not really work the other way to anything like the same extent, Mr Humphries.
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