Page 2455 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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I note that CIT is also growing its international student market and delivering national programs in collaboration with commonwealth public sector agencies and departments. I am encouraged that the new corporate structure outlined in 2014 looks to be working. As I have said many times, we need CIT to be a leader in vocational education in the ACT and beyond. We want it to work and to work well and profitably. There are opportunities for training here in the ACT that CIT could benefit from uniquely.
One area that was discussed in the estimates hearings was the courses CIT is offering in emerging technologies, including wind and solar power generation. In answer to a question taken on notice, the committee learned that funding agreements had been signed with companies in the renewable energy space and that CIT was currently offering three training modules for people who work or want to work in renewable wind technologies. The CIT Renewable Energy Skills Centre of Excellence has been established and the committee was advised that a comprehensive marketing strategy has been developed to promote the work it is doing and the courses it is offering. As the committee commented, the committee notes this involvement and endorses the CIT approach and programs.
It has also made a formal recommendation:
… that CIT continue to work with the renewable energy sector in assessing the workforce that will be required to meet the ACT Government’s renewable energy target.
It also recommended:
… that the ACT Government continue to support the CIT Renewable Energy Skills Centre and expand funding and partnership agreements through engagement with the private sector.
Whether this budget has targeted funding streams appropriately for CIT, when it has allowed it to languish in the past, is a debatable point. Despite the government’s best intentions to stifle cooperation between the two institutions, I am also encouraged by the increasing collaboration with the University of Canberra only a few years after its very hard battle with and against them for survival. I think that with the change at the top of both institutions in recent times there is a real opportunity for both to strengthen and grow and to seek out opportunities that benefit and expand their market reach. I hope this government does not manage to mangle this relationship and interfere as it has in other UC partnerships.
The Canberra Liberals want CIT to be a success story. We are doubtful it can be with so much attention and money being directed away from education and into projects simply to hang on to government. We know that CIT can do better and it will have an opportunity to do that under a Canberra Liberal government. As the Leader of the Opposition has stated on several occasions, we will not be supporting these appropriation bills. I think there are any number of examples we have provided as to why we are not supporting them.
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