TAFE funding and the education targets: a paper discussing recent trends in public funding for VET and TAFE and the implications for future funding of government targets to improve the skills of the Australia population

This paper explores the funding implications for the vocational education and training (VET) sector, and especially for TAFE institutes, of government targets to increase the education and training qualification profile of the Australian population. The paper states that: (1) funding for VET has dropped almost 12 per cent per hour of tuition between 2003 and 2008, and by more than 22 per cent per hour since 1997; (2) the proportion of VET funding received by TAFEs, which provides the vast majority of VET, has declined since at least 2002 as payments to private training institutes...  [+] Show more

This paper explores the funding implications for the vocational education and training (VET) sector, and especially for TAFE institutes, of government targets to increase the education and training qualification profile of the Australian population. The paper states that: (1) funding for VET has dropped almost 12 per cent per hour of tuition between 2003 and 2008, and by more than 22 per cent per hour since 1997; (2) the proportion of VET funding received by TAFEs, which provides the vast majority of VET, has declined since at least 2002 as payments to private training institutes increased; and (3) achieving the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) target to halve the proportion of the population without a Certificate III or higher qualification, and the target of doubling the annual number of Diploma completions by 2020, will require an increase in government recurrent funding of $2.2 billion, i.e. an average increase in public expenditure on VET of an additional $200 million each year between 2009 and 2020.

Excerpts from paper.