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This paper explores the development of a tentative conceptual framework for understanding the role and positioning of TAFE policy in Queensland as the public provider of post-compulsory vocational education and training. The framework provides the background for an investigation into how far the policy pendulum has shifted since the Kangan Report (1974) (indexed at TD/LMR 85.637), the foundation policy document that provided a charter for the role and purpose of TAFE. The dual roles of TAFE identifiable within Kangan were that education should provide both social and economic roles for students and the community and on behalf of government. For this reason, both of these roles are critical starting points for the development of a conceptual model for determining the extent to which there has been a policy shift in TAFE’s charter over recent decades. Social, economic and political changes since the 1980’s have provided significant external influences that have shaped and continue to shape the nature and purpose of TAFE away from an emphasis on a social service paradigm. The proposed framework accommodates these forces.