The best measure of TAFE’s success, is not only the achievements of its graduates, but also their eagerness to credit their success to TAFE. “If it hadn’t been for TAFE…” is a sentence we often hear from TAFE graduates as they share their stories of how TAFE turned their life around, gave them the second chance they needed, or in the case of Adam Moore gave them the education they needed to pursue their dreams.
TAFE changes lives. It is the backbone of communities around Australia. It is a world-class asset. TAFE teachers say these things because they see how TAFE transforms their students’ lives every year. Warren Easterbrook, a teacher at Glendale TAFE, not only sees his students flourish and grow, but is abundantly aware of how TAFE has shaped and supported his family for four generations.
On Tuesday the 19th of November, Adelaide College of the Arts students rallied outside the Dame Roma Mitchell building on Light Square to protest against the closure of their campus library. Their demonstration attracted media attention and was features on that evening's broadcast of the channel seven news.
Practitioners in TAFE may be surprised or even affronted by this question, but not so a number of State governments. Increasingly the answer seems to be a resounding ‘no’.
I recently attended a conference on investing. I was told to do this because it is a good thing to do when approaching retirement. Most of the participants at the conference wanted to know what the future of the share market was.