The development of TAFE in Australia

Technical and Further Education (or TAFE) is the largest provider of post-secondary education in Australia. TAFE systems are administered by eight different State and Territory authorities of widely varying size and character.

TAFE systems have a number of characteristics which distinguish them from other sectors of education. An important feature is the geographical spread of TAFE institutes, with eighty-four institutes operating over 300 campuses around Australia. TAFE also offers an extremely wide range of courses which provide education and training for employment at the operative, trade and paraprofessional level, as well as general education and literacy programs. A major difference between TAFE and higher education institutions is the diversity of course durations, which range from a few hours for refresher courses to two or three years for associate diploma and diploma courses and, consequently, the wide range of credentials which includes statements of attainment, certificates, diplomas and advanced diplomas.

Another characteristic of TAFE is the variety of attendance patterns. Unlike higher education and schools which have large full-time student populations, the majority of TAFE students attend part time or study externally, combining work and study. Part-time attendance can include attendance either during the day or in the evening, by block release or through distance education. Attendance can be full time for all or part of a year or for several days or hours per week. Increasingly, TAFE is looking at taking courses to the student either through use of technology or providing programs at the workplace.

Unlike universities, which are autonomous institutions, most TAFE systems originated and developed as parts of government departments. This has meant that as well as being educational institutions, they have had to operate within a public administration framework. As a result, over the past twenty years, TAFE has been expected to implement both Commonwealth Government and State Government economic, social justice and education policies.

The history of technical education up to the early 1970s, when it acquired its new name TAFE, shows a sector of education which, although fulfilling a critical role in providing post-secondary education and training for large numbers of people, was consistently under-valued and under-resourced. The development of technical education has not been consistent but has been characterised by periods of rapid change followed by much longer periods of neglect. Thus technical education has usually tended to prosper during times of national crises such as world wars and economic depressions when increased funding was provided for both buildings and student places. For example, in the 1930s, while technical education, along with other forms of education, suffered financially in the early part of the Depression, by the middle of that decade there were insistent demands for an expansion of technical education to alleviate the problem of unemployed youth. This led, among other provisions, to the establishment of day training classes for unemployed youth and for some Commonwealth funds to be provided to the States for this purpose. Similarly, in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, both Commonwealth Government and State Governments have provided funds and programs aimed at alleviating the problems of the high levels of unemployment of young people.

Perhaps part of the problem faced by technical education in establishing its position in the education spectrum prior to the 1970s was the lack of a clear identity and charter. In part, this was probably the result of the wide range of courses and awards and, in part, a result of the diversity of structures across Australia. To some extent, technical education in Australia had to be self-defining and it therefore lacked the immediate recognition of roles and structures that characterised both the school and higher education sectors. The inclusion of technical education as a sub-section of departments of education tended to restrict development as, generally, first priority in funding was given to schools. It was not until the Commonwealth Government commenced providing designated grants to TAFE systems in the 1970s that those States that still had technical education as part of their departments of education started expanding and upgrading their facilities.

The difficulty in establishing a clear charter for technical education has also been exacerbated by the question of status of awards. Throughout its history, there has been conflict between technical education and the other sectors of education, particularly universities, about what has been an appropriate role. Professional associations have had a significant influence on which institution should provide the professional education and training for their members. For example, in the 1890s and early 1900s there was constant friction between Sydney Technical College and Sydney University over who should offer what course. Following the establishment, by legislation, of registration boards for occupations such as dentistry and pharmacy, the criterion for registration was established as a degree, rather than the traditional technical education diploma, and the courses were consequently moved to the university. A similar process occurred with all engineering courses, with the exception of sanitary engineering, which was deemed to be more appropriate for a technical college than a university. The history of technical education in New South Wales, in particular, is one where the top levels of technical education courses have been continually creamed off by higher education institutions and subsequently upgraded to degrees, usually at the request of the relevant professional body. The perceived need to upgrade the status of a profession in the eyes of the community, by requiring a degree as the entry criterion, has not only under-valued TAFE credentials but has also exacerbated the difficulties TAFE has had in creating and maintaining a clear identity.

In the British tradition, universities have been regarded as having a distinct role from other tertiary institutions. Although there has been continuing argument as to the precise nature of this role, and although it can be demonstrated that the university of the 1990s in both Britain and Australia differs significantly in many respects from the universities of the 1850s, there is still a belief that the fundamental role of the universities has not changed and is still the same as articulated by Ashby in 1946:

Here is the criterion for determining what subject or parts of a subject should be taught at a university. If the subject lends itself to disinterested thinking; if generalisation can be extracted from it; if it can be advanced by research; if in brief, it breeds ideas in the mind, then the subject is appropriate for a university. If, on the other hand, the subject borrows all its principles from an older study (as journalism does from literature, or salesmanship from psychology, or massage from anatomy and physiology) and does not lead to generalisation, then the subject is not a proper one for a university. Let it be taught somewhere by all means. It is important that there should be opportunities for training in it. But it is a technique, not an exercise for maintaining intellectual health; and the place for technique is a technical college.
(Ashby, cited in Hermann et al. 1976, p.27)

Although universities now teach journalism and marketing, there is still a belief that there is a fundamental difference in the level and type of education provided by universities and TAFE in that university education involves higher cognitive skills and a more theoretical approach and, so, is more valuable than the more applied approach taken by technical education. This view was expressed in the Murray report in 1957, when the committee saw a great danger that:

a technical college, or another institution of a similar type, which is performing excellently its proper function of producing the technicians and craftsmen for whom there is an urgent national need, may be led by a false sense of values to try its hand at producing another type, the professional engineer or technologist and so lessen its effectiveness for its own particular task.
(Committee on Australian Universities 1957)

This view is still current today. In the chairman's foreword to the final report of the Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy, Learning for life, Roderick West said:

The submissions that our committee received supported the widespread view that VET should continue to teach competencies and maintain the strong focus on skills and higher education should cultivate attributes. Each sector should have clearly expressed goals. There should be articulation and credit transfer between the sectors and, where possible, facilities should be shared as well in order to effect economies. The curricula, however, should be clearly defined and discrete.
(Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy 1998, p.9)

Ever since its inception, TAFE has been expected to fill all the educational and training gaps. At the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, most technical education systems provided 'continuation' courses for post-primary students. This role was relinquished only when secondary schools were established. In Western Australia, Perth Technical College provided not only continuation courses but also university courses under licence from the University of Adelaide until the University of Western Australia was established. In times of war, TAFE has been expected to train both service personnel and the civilian population. In times of economic depression, TAFE has been expected to run ameliorative programs for the unemployed. When the New South Wales Department of Technical Education lost its diploma courses to the University of New South Wales, with the subsequent upgrading of them to degree courses, TAFE then developed certificate courses to fill the gap created for training for paraprofessional occupations. Today, TAFE is expected to provide the vocational education and training (VET) needs of industry, the entry-level VET requirements of 15-19 year olds, the special needs of disadvantaged groups within society and the retraining needs of those who wish to re-enter the workforce after an absence or as a result of redundancy. Whilst the other two sectors of education have clearly defined roles, the schools by age and the universities by awards, TAFE, throughout its long history, has been required to fill all the other educational needs of the community and industry.

The release of the report of the Australian Committee on Technical and Further Education, TAFE in Australia (ACOTAFE 1974), the subsequent establishment of the Technical and Further Education Commission (TAFEC) and the provision of Commonwealth funding in the 1970s had a dramatic effect on technical education in all States. It meant that technical education under its new name TAFE was recognised nationally as a distinct identity within the education spectrum. It meant that both the quality and quantity of TAFE provision could be raised. However, it also meant that, for the first time, the Commonwealth was intervening in TAFE policy and practice. This last development has had a significant impact on TAFE over the past twenty-five years.

In researching this topic, it became clear that despite the major changes that have occurred in TAFE over the past two decades, particularly its growth and its emergence as a major part of the tertiary education sector, there was very little documentation of the development of TAFE during this period. This is particularly noticeable when comparing the lack of information on TAFE with the vast amount written and published on schools and higher education institutions. The literature review provided some useful historical sources but revealed only limited documentation of the changes that have occurred in TAFE since the Kangan report in 1974. The main sources of information have, therefore, been government reports, departmental annual reports and interviews with people who were involved in many of the major events during this period. Clarification of structural changes within TAFE systems was obtained from individual officers within these systems.

This book is essentially a history of TAFE policy and administrative arrangements at both State and national levels. A brief review of the history of technical education in Australia and of Commonwealth involvement in TAFE prior to 1970 is provided in chapter 2, as it is difficult to understand the present day TAFE system and structure without an understanding of TAFE's origins. The main themes of the following chapters are the impact of the increasing level of Commonwealth Government intervention in TAFE policies and programs, the inter-relationship between the Commonwealth and States over the past twenty-five years and the structural changes that have occurred at Commonwealth and State levels.