TAFE barriers

September 1, 2026

Indeed, we urgently need more Voc Ed students to have a sporting chance in an increasingly competitive industrial world, but attracting more students (and employers) will require a major reset of TAFE arrangements .

The current TAFE system is dominated by Competency Based Training (CBT), a managerially approved recipe for training hub-cap fitters for the vehicle assembly lines of 1960.

CBT has a philosophy that only properly trained folks with the word ‘MANAGER’ on their office door plaques are capable of complex human thought. It’s a dead philosophy for long dead industry practices.

CBT has been rescued from oblivion by its inclusion of the word ‘competency’. No politician or bureaucrat dares question the word, even when words like cooperate, question, explain, investigate, trial, develop, or improve have far more to do with the success of a modern workplace.

TAFE is inflexible, unable to meet the needs of far too many students. Too much TAFE program content is determined by Central Planning Committees, remarkably similar to those of the USSR.

Chanting “Fee Free TAFE” will not alter the reality of students voting with their feet,