An overview

A strong system of public training institutions

Australia has recently developed strategies to develop competition among training providers and to foster the growth of private training providers so that the clients of training have greater choice in where they obtain their training.

Notwithstanding these developments, the hallmark of the Australian system of vocational education and training over the past 30 years has been a policy developed by successive governments to establish and develop a comprehensive system of public TAFE colleges and institutes across the nation. The overwhelming majority of publicly funded vocational education and training is provided through the 100 or so TAFE institutes and other government providers in around 1,000 campuses across Australia.

Virtually every town in Australia has a TAFE institute campus or annex. Where such local facilities are not available many TAFE courses can be undertaken by correspondence or some other distance learning mode. Participation rates in rural and remote parts of Australia are at or above the rates for capital city and other metropolitan areas (NCVER 1999).

Australia’s current vocational education and training system, involving a very diverse offering of vocational education and training at different levels to such a high proportion of the total population, would simply not be possible without a strong system of public TAFE institutes and other public vocational education and training providers.

Of course, there is still more to be done to ensure that vocational education and training providers, including TAFE, are even more responsive to client needs than is currently the case.

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