Page 2598 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 October 1992
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TAFE is most fortunately served by additional finance. However, it remains to be seen whether this cornucopia of money for TAFE places and, by inference, training will translate into jobs, or whether it is simply a cynical political mopping up exercise to keep the official unemployment figures from breaking through the one million barrier before the next Federal election rolls around. As anybody involved in politics knows, the unofficial, or hidden, unemployment figure in this country is well beyond one million already. Whatever the intention, however, TAFE is benefiting from this increased funding, and one should be grateful for these small mercies.
I would like to make two more comments, Madam Speaker. Firstly, ACT TAFE, despite the high profile of one or two of its schools, consists of nine schools. They are listed on the cover of the 1991 annual report, in alphabetical order. I think this is right and proper; no school should be regarded as better than any other. All schools serve those who wish to attend them and be educated in them. From these schools come practical, innovative, qualified people, in so many disciplines that time will not permit me to list them here. Suffice it to say, however, that the nine schools, as the 1991 report indicates, already have attracted 180 students under the international student program. They are attending these TAFE courses on a fee basis, I might add. The number of overseas students has risen in 1992 and is set to increase further in future years. Indeed, when satisfactory student accommodation can be provided, we will probably find ourselves in a much better position to address the matter of international students and the funding they can bring into the ACT and into our TAFE system.
Finally, Madam Speaker, this will be the last occasion, when addressing a TAFE annual report, that we will refer to the report by that acronym. From January 1993 ACT TAFE will be known as the Canberra Institute of Technology. Naturally being conscious of costings, I trust that due attention will be paid to using up, or at least using for other purposes, the existing letterhead and that the new logo will not prove too costly. I support the change of name. ACT TAFE, I find, a clumsy expression. In fact, it is rather like not having your false teeth in place when you pronounce it. More to the point, if one reads down the list of nine schools represented, and if one, however reluctantly, like some twentieth century Luddite, examines the range of courses and curricula, one must reach the conclusion that the name change is both necessary and appropriate.
Earlier today I attended a breakfast at the TAFE college, addressed by the Minister for Employment, Education and Training, Mr Beazley, and he made the same point. He welcomed the name change here in the ACT. Somewhat to my surprise, and I believe to the surprise of numbers of other people in the audience, he said that name changes of this nature were being resisted elsewhere in the country. I do not really understand why that is. Nevertheless, Mr Beazley welcomed the name change. He added that of late there has been a move from the university system to the TAFE system. I have no doubt that the reasons for this are many. I am sure that they include the difficulty of gaining university entrance at all, due to the higher entrance requirements being imposed. Further, the desperation facing increasing numbers of school leavers in their quest for employment forces them to defer their entry into the world of work and puts pressure on various centres of learning.
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