PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
AND THE MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION TRAINING,
THE HON K. BEAZLEY MP
PRESS CONFERENCE, 21 JULY 1992
E& OE PROOF COPY ONLY
PM: Well over the years I think some of us have come to
you and said that we have used the term " truly
historic agreements"' but on this occasion it is an
entirely true description that what we have
completed with the States in a very cooperative
manner is truly a historic agreement which will
change the nature of vocational education in
Australia forever anai hil' give9at least half of the
school leavers of this country a third route to
education and training. That is, after high school
and universitf-s, another route to education and
training. And we have come from a position where
three years ago the Commonwealth virtually knew very
little about TAFE or about the training and
vocational education paths and we have come from a
position where we have been, as a Commonwealth, a
Government topping up State funds for TAFE to now
building on the One Nation p~ roposals thfirou~ gh this
mechanism to build a truly national training
authority where the States manage the operational
basis of the TAFE systems, but where national policy
is set by a Ministerial Council and where funding
both State and Commonwealth is paid at a national
training authority to be funded by interstate
training authorities. And I think what will happen
is that as a result that we will be able to build
proper training profiles for State TAFE institutions
to reflect the needs of the labour market and the
young people of this country. I would like to pay
tribute to the cooperative approach of the Premiers.
This had to be of its essence, a cooperative matter.
The States spend upwards of $ 2 billion a year on
technical and further education. The Commonwealth
spends a comparatively small amount with the States,
but that will now grow as the One Nation money is
committed to it. And that is why there was never a
possibility of the Commonwealth taking over the
system as to funding and as to policy. There always
had to be a cooperative arrangement in running the
system with national objectives and national focus.
And even though this negotiation has not been easy
it has been cooperative and can I say that as late
as last Friday, Kim met with the NSW Premier and
came to an agreement which was ratified today by the
NSW Cabinet and that was the last and the major
State to come to the agreement and he gave me the
cheery news by car phone on Friday, hurtling back
from Mr Fahey's home. So it has been quite a long
process, but on the part of all the States, a degree
of good will to arrive at something good for the
country, for the nation, for the young people of
this country and for those adults in the community
who wish to extend their own training and open up
vocational opportunities for themselves. So I would
with those few opening words, invite Kim Beazley. to
address himself to the issue in general -anid some of
the more detailed issues which flesh out some of the
powers of the body, etc.
KB: Could I say at the outset this is the sort of
agreement that can only be negotiated between Prime
Ministers and Premiers, it is not an agreement that
you would ever reach by a decision making process
involving directly the line departments. And that
is fundamentally because it is a substantial shift.
It is of a piece, I think, with the decisions by the
uCnoimvmeornswietailetsh. to Iet ffise ctoif veal yp ietcaek e wiotvhe r t funddeicnigs iofon by
thidbmmnweaith to become the principal funding-_
source of the private school system in the country
were both essenilly initfiativesg-taken some
considerable period of time ago. And like those
initiatives in their different ways, this outcome is
essentially the sort of outcome that you would
expect to see in a Federal system, and a Federal
system which awards the principal role in decision
making on education matters to State authorities.
This is the general point that I make, and
appropriately the running on this as far as the
Commonwealth side of the issue was concerned was by
the principal officials in the Prime Minister's
_ department and in the Prime Miftiste'-s' offie-bon
Russell. As far as the material that is before you
1Is cocerned, I draw attention to these features.
Firstly, it establishes a meaningful process to get
in place a set of national strategies, national
objectives and national planning, is the first point
that I would make. The second point that I would
make on it, it establishes a process of
accountability which ensures when we go through with
each of the States from the training authority
profiling on the needs of the totality of their
vocational education and training systems, it is not
just about TAFE, it is broader than that. As they
establish those profiles they will do so in
accordance with policy set, in the first instance by
the Ministerial Council advised by ANTA, and they
will have an accountability also frithe operations
of the system not just to ANTA but also to their own
State ministries. Thus also will proceed the
activities of the State Training Boards and I think
that, as I said, the complexity of this as well as
the elements of its simplicity reflect the nature of
our federal system. I think another point that I
would make on that is the question of effort, which
I think is terribly important. In here there is a
guarantee from the States that they will maintain
effort as far as their training activities are
concerned. Now exactly how that is defined in terms
of both outcomes and financial arrangements will of
course be discussed through with the individual
States via the Ministerial Council process and via
ANTA, but that is a very important first commitment.
What it means is that the additional Commonwealth
resources which come in over the years are not
dissipated and there will be, therefore, genuine
growth in the system as a result of the decisions
taken here today. There is also an agreement that
once those definitions are arrived at on effort that
States which are not performing to that effort will
from their own resources, not from the resources
that are coming through from the Commonwealth, will
meet those from their own resources any inadequacies
as far as that effort is concerned. As far as the
Commonwealth is concerned, we are agreeing via this
to put all the sorts of long-term training funds
that we have been operating on our own to this
point, for various purposes sometimes cajoling
industry into an effort, sometimes cajoling the
States into an effort, using the sort of seed money
method of the Commonwealth trying to have an
influence over a national agenda, we do effectively
surrender those positions and the Commonwealth
resources are put into the National Training
Authority. And we will seek in the main though we
maintain our own labour market programs, in the main
we will seek, as the States will seek, to exercise
policy influence in this area via the processes in
the Ministerial Council and the National Training
Authority. Finally, the National Training Authority
is to be an authority which is biased in its
decision making processes very much towards the
needs of industry in terms of the training outcomes
and requirements that operate both on the State
systems and private providers who are assisted. It
is also an Authority that is there to be an
authority of people with substantial expertise. And
I would believe that over time the Ministerial
Council will find that it is readily accepting of
the sorts of propositions about what ought to be
happening in our national training system that
emanate from this body. There is obviously an
absolu . te requirement on those of us who are
participants in the Ministerial Council to make sure
that we get the personnel to serve on that Board
that delivers that sort of outcome.
PM: Why don't we leave it to you to put questions.
J: Prime Minister, if all were to go well, what would a
TAFE look like in say, ten years from now. Would it
be of the European polytechnic style?
PM: Well I think the objective would be to lift it to a
status which is the kind of status enjoyed by the
urpajpolytechnics. That is, as the national and
State traihing-pi6if. s are implemented, as the
resources are committed, as the status and quality
of the system rises, that must inevitably be the
outcome. Because we can't truly create a third path
in there without such a system. I have said before,
that Australia in a sense faces a training emergency
if it wants to be the kind of clever country it
needs to be and this has started, of course, by this
Government lifting those retention rates in
secondary school from three in ten to seven in ten,
making the tertiary places available and now picking
up the other system, TAFE, and giving it some
national structure and status. And that is why I
think that this body is a historic change, I mean,
Kim has compared it to the Commonwealth funding of
universities or the funding of the private schools
system, it is of that status. But again, it will
have that can-do quality about it where the States
and State Minister will still have the touch on the
system at the local level but where the bigger
national priorities are being brought to the policy
of the institutions.
J: Prime Minister, you said in your opening remarks
that Commonwealth takeover of TAFE was quote never a
possibility. Isn't that exactly what you proposed
in your Sunday Program appearance?
PM: Yes. I put the proposition to them that we take it
over as to policy and as to funds. They wouldn't
have that. They wouldn't accept that. That is, for
the growth money that we were adding to the system,
they thought it was not reasonable for us to subsume
funding and control for the vast block of funds they
put to the system. The One Nation proposition was
Commonwealth growth funding, joint control. The
Sunday television performance proposition was an
offer of total Commonwealth control. Now Victoria
wanted to agree to that, for instance. One State
wanted to agree to that, Commonwealth control of
Commonwealth funds. We may have ended up with two
States in it, but we wouldn't have got all the
States. Whereas I think what we have here is
something which everybody can sign up to and where
we are going to get those national objectives down
into the system and where the States feel they have
got a legitimate role in it and where the balance of
roles is played out in that Ministerial Council.
J: Could you just elaborate a bit, Mr Keating, on what
the balance of roles will be in the Ministerial
Council between the Commonwealth, the States,
employers and unions and so forth?
PM: Well, first of all there is a simple majority in
decisions on the Ministerial Council. Each State,
each Territory is represented with one vote
regardless of size, so the ACT has a vote as against
NSW, and the Commonwealth has two votes and a
casting vote. So it gives the Commonwealth a fair
bit of leverage in the system. But again, that is
pretty much as we have it in some of the other fora
we meet the States in. But invariably votes are
never taken. Most of these things run by agreement.
This, as Kim said, will be run by a professional
body of acknowledged experts, they will be the
people largely making the policy and the Ministerial
Council is relevant in a sense in the event of a
dispute between a State Minister and the Authority,
then the Ministerial Council prevails. Now this may
happen, but the likelihood is that the body will run
by agreement.
J: Mr Keating you said that the Federal money is
channelled through this Authority. If in the event
the Federal Government did not agree with the
Ministerial Council's decisions or priorities, if
the States jacked up against it, does the Federal
Government keep to itself the right not to put in
that money?
PM: It puts in money for its commitment, the growth
money of vocational education.
J: you mention the -la-bour market, Commonwealth
labour market programs, will you be maintaining your
existing funding and putting it on top of the One
Nation funds or will it come out of the One Nation?
KB: Basically those aspects that are concerned with
vocational education and training arrangements of a
long term nature directly, like for example the
funds which we will ultimately commit to the
Carmicheal processes will go through this Authority,
as well as what we specifically put down for
vocational education and training. But where, for
example there is a requirement to immediately meet a
particular problem which emerges from the recession
for example, the sort of job training type
activities, then the Commonwealth keeps those
resources-discrete. The objective here is not to
put through the process what the Commonwealth has to
do from time to time to address a particular labour
market problem is to put all the long term money
through that process. So it will at the end of the
day be more than just the funding that's been
committed for training in regard to TAFE. Now of
course there are a series of issues that are likely
to arise from this, and the nuts and bolts detail we
will have to discuss through with the States at the
same time for example we are discussing through with
the States the actual fine detail of the term
effort, the maintenance of effort. But our
disposition is, and indeed our agreement is, that
effectively all the training money for long term
activities will go through this way.
J: How much money are you looking at there to give the
KB: Well, those are budget matters that I'm talking
through with my colleagues at the moment and I'm not
going to foreshadow. But it will end up at the end
of the day over the 18 months before this finally
gets up and operating you'll see in this document
here there are particular elements of a timetable in
it. Now it will end up effectively at the end of
the day more than the growth money that we're
talking about.
J: Is there any particular formula for dividing the
Commonwealth component of the funding between the
States or could that change from year to year
depending of perceived needs?.
KB: It's basically in the first going to be divided per
capita, but subsequent propositions will from the
States, will of course be entertained by the
Ministerial Council and the Board and be subject to
their recommendations.
J: Mr Keating you said in your statement there'll be
more opportunities for young people. Can you
quantify that? How many extra job training places
or whatever would emerge in the decade?
PM: Well there's roughly half of the school leavers do
not undertake further training. In part this is
because the system is not geared up to take them.
It's 130,000. Now obviously no system comprehends
taking everybody up, but this system over time
should take a large proportion of them up. I mean
this is a route and branch change of the education
system of Australia.
KB: Some time ago a shortfall of I think it was,
identified a shortfall of about 150,000 places in
TAFE, some of that has been addressed by things
already done but by and large that shortfall
remains. It would be our intention over several
triennials, in accordance with the Finn timetable,
to eliminate that.
J: Mr Beazley process of what you call effective
training market does that
KB: I can't hear you
J: You contemplate the process of what you call an
effective training market, I wonder whether you
could explain what you mean by an effective training
market. Does that take into account some sort of
voucher stem or some sort of provision of funding
so that both private and public sector institutions
can battle for the public purse?
KB: No, not a voucher system, you'd be aware that we do
provide resources now, and so do the States, for
training activities, in fact we buy places for
training activities in private providers. Now we
would want to leave ANTA and indeed if you read
through the materials here it is suggestive of it,
we would want to leave ANTA with, and the States
want us to do this too this is no big deal as far as
we're concerned, leave room for them to make
recommendations about where the location of
particular training activities ought to be. And
this in-part reflects the industry bias that I said
at the outset was associated with this. It is quite
obvious now that a large number of industries are
beginning to get themselves very active in providing
facilities and opportunities in training programs
and to develop a view about what should actually be
provided indeed there fund skills centres in TAFEs
conform precisely to what their needs would be. So
what this does basically is give this body authority
to operate across the board and put their money into
the profiling process into any particular process
they like. It doesn't mean that we're going to
introduce voucher systems, I think that's a terribly
old fashion way of talking about education and to
carry over from the'way in which people used to talk
about what ought to be done in the secondary school
system, I think what this does is give us
flexibility for more active industry involvement.
J: One of the criticisms that industry makes of the
existing TAFE structure is that the products, if you
like, of the TAFE system are not geared or cannot
dove tail with industries expectations. How will
that improve under this new system?
PM: Well part of the point of this is to construct a
training profile which does reflect labour market
realities and demands and the demands of industry
and that's why on ANTA itself we should hope to have
people who have that industry perspective and
experience so that the body does function to look
after the needs of clients to the system rather than
perhaps service providers. Which has been one of
the criticisms of the existing TAFE system.
J: Has industry been sufficiently specific about what
it actually wants, where it wants to end up?
PM: Well in some cases, in some cases to the point where
we are actually currently contributing to joint
training arrangements with particular companies or
industry sectors. I mean I think industry is very
much attune to the needs of the training market and
what such a body could do and I'm quite sure that
they will be very clear in putting a view as to what
ANTA is capable of doing.
KB: ITAB the Industry Training Advisory Boards are to
some degrie subsumed by this process. The pilot in
process is associated with Carmichael are going to
heavily involve industry in defining in what it
needs in terms of the non-industry training
provision and all of that over time is going to be
effectively overseen by the processes entailed in
this document.
J: Just on Carmichael Mr Keating's statement yesterday
indicatea' tat _ the Carmichael scheme would take
quite some time to get up and running. Could you
give us some idea of the scopes that you see to get
that started say next year how many people
would be involved say in one year or three years
out?
KB: I think you should let us reserve something for the
Youth Summit and the employment package in the
budget.
PM: In my view it might be worth while just walking you
through a couple of the key points in here which,
just to focus you in, the first the objectives are
the objectives which we committed ourselves to in
the statement yesterday in terms of national
training authority objectives, the first lot of
objectives. If you turn to page 2 you'll see under
State training agencies, with responsibility for
vocational education training within their own
borders consistent with the agreed emphasis on
agreed national strategic plan on training policy
and the agreed State planning profile, not the
relevant or something but the agreed State planning
profile. State training agencies will be
accountable to State Ministers and Parliaments for
the operation responsibilities of their agencies and
accountable to the Ministerial Council on matters on
National policy. Now that link re-appears on page 3
at the bottom, Ministerial Council, the last dot
point, to determine national goals, objectives and
priorities for vocational education and training, on
page 4, the fourth dot point, to agree planning
parameters and profiles for delivery of vocational
education and training nationally and the sixth dot
point, to resolve any dispute between ANTA and a
State training agency or any other issue raised by a
Minister. So in other words the Ministerial Council
resolves a dispute between ANTA and a State training
authority and a State Minister, and of course in the
resolution of that dispute the Commonwealth sits
there with two votes in the casting vote. Page
one, two, three, four, fifth dot point, to develop
in conjunction with State training agencies an
efficient and quality service provision, so even in
an operational sense ANTA has a specific power to
develop in conjunction with training agencies and
efficient and quality service provision, that is the
quality of operation the distinguishing feature
between operations and policy where that may be
blurred as we all know in public administration, in
any administration it can be blurred that while
primarily operations resile with State training
authorities ANTA is in there expressly in relation
to efficiency and quality of the delivery of
services, so it has again an express role. On
page 6 at 11, dot points one and two, to provide to
ANTA policy advice, so State training agencies
provide policy advice and develop in conjunction
with ANTA detailed State training profiles. And on
page 8 at point 31 under Funding Arrangements, the
States will at least maintain their effort for
vocational education and training on an ongoing
basis, in other words there's the maintenance there
of State effort, but when we move to outcomes on
page 9 we say any state which is demonstratively
under-achieving would agree to increase its efforts,
so it's not as if the Commonwealth then picks up the
under-achievers, as we did with Universities, with
Universities what we had to do was when they were
flagging behind the Commonwealth had to pick them
up, this is not the case here. And they're the main
points.
J: Prime Minister, I mean for example, if the
Commonwealth decided that in order to rebuild
Victoria's manufacturing base you needed to up their
contribution to their TAFE system and the smaller
States decided this was unfair for whatever variety
of reasons isn't it conceivable that national
objective could be overturned by a combination of
the smaller States?
PM: I don't think so.
KB: At the moment now this has enormous focus because it
really has required the Prime Minister and Premiersto
break it all through. There's just no question
about that. You can't make a shift like this
without the heads of the Governments of this country
being involved. This program as it builds up with a
very authoritative Board, well supported by
industry. We'll sink back, not sink back that's a
bad expression to use, we'll return to the
activities of the line Departments, and they just
basically don't operate that way. I mean I've had a
couple of experiences now of so called MOVIC
ministerial meetings which will effectively be the
Council the Ministerial Council and we rely very
heavily on the advice of our officials in an
organisation called VTAC which supports MOVIC.
There'll obviously in this particular instance be a
lot of discussion around the funding formula and
it's quite possible the funding formula will
continue from time to time to be of very direct
interest, but the way in which the profiles are
developed, over time, more and more expertise will
come to play in this. The idea I think of the sort
of States ganging up to roll the Commonwealth and
another couple of States I think is just outside the
framework of how those operations take place, it's
just not a people can invent sort of thin edge
of the wedge arguments about anything associated
with any part of our federation but I think the
practicalities of life mean that on a day to day
basis that sort of thing just won't happen.
PM: The reason I walked you through the document a
moment ago was just to demonstrate the sort of
tension, the creative tension that's in the design,
that is that prerogatives of the States and the
Commonwealth and the national interests here are I
think, set nicely in balance. I noticed in the
Australian newspaper today someone was sold a pup.
You can sell people pups easily around this
building, on the basis that this was a sort of walk
over for the States. Well if you just go through
those points you'll see where the national
where ANTA's powers are clear and where the
ministerial powers are clear in resolving disputes
between States, training agencies, ministers and
ANTA, where States have to maintain their financial
effort, where the Commonwealth will not be bringing
up under performing States.
J: Will this do anything for the jobless?
PM: Who wrote the Aus story, by the way? Sorry, my
apologies.
J: In the short term could this tell us the number of
unemployed young youth places will be
available next year when it becomes...?
KB: Well, yes I think it will. I think that the growth
money, given that it is going in on the basis that
the States maintain effort, will allow a pretty
substantial addressing of those sorts of
requirements. I think Dave Phillips 100 million
provided about 30,000 places, 30,000 to 40,000
places from recollection. So, that came through in
the last set of money so you can, on the basis of
that, start calculating what 70 million next year
will do, what 140 million the year after will do and
being able to plan with 70 million knowing you are
getting 140 million. I think that what this will
provide is a very substantial ballast to back up
other elements of the labour market program, which
we will be bringing forward as short-term measures
to deal with the unemployment problems, where they
require a TAFE element to the resolution. An awful
lot of Commonwealth training programs, not just TAFE
but also private provider elements. An awful lot of
Commonwealth short-term labour market programs
require access to TAFE provision. Now this will
massively increase the compacity of TAFE and the
private providers to back those programs up. So,
without wishing to identify, because you can't place
by place, a resolution, the capacity to support
other elements to the labour market programs put
people in training, take them out of an area of just
hopeless unproductive unemployment. It is a massive
effective back-up to that.
J: ( inaudible)
KB: Well it will have its own act, we will have to
legislate to establish a separate Commonwealth
training authority in conformity with the conditions
that are laid down here. There will be, of course,
a requirement for us to also pass, as we always do,
a vocational education and training act with
what we don't do now but will do next time, is
with a triennial funding base in it and then there
will be a cross-over between those two Acts. Now
the one act will give the Commonwealth Minister
authorities to dispense funds and the other Act
would oblige the Commonwealth Minister to dispense
funds in accordance with this agreement.
J: bodies in terms of accountability will go to, for
instance, the Senate Estimates Committees?
KB: Yes, as with all areas of my portfolio, and indeed
as the statutory authorities have found from time to
time they will find themselves explaining life to
the Senate Estimates Committees.
J: Prime Minister you nominated the Finn Committee
yesterday in your background paper o-n take-up rates
for TAFE, 15-19 year olds, have you any idea about
how much additional spending over and above the $ 720
million that will require to achieve that sort of
objective?
PM: No, I mean you could have a stab at it, but I think
the point was the Finn and Deveson Committee smoked
out what the Commonwealth needed to have smoked out
about the way the TAFE system functions in this
country, and to focus on long term pathways for the
transition from school to work. Now, that's where
we started it, we then got into the act with capital
and recurrent, we then added to that with the One
Nation money and we have now taken it up for this.
So, all the things which Kim ( Beazely) is doing now
with Carmichael, those long lines of transition
between school and work really couldn't be, I don't
think, over time anyway, successfully accomplished
without ballast in this system. That's going to
cost money and the growth is obviously going to come
from the Commonwealth, I mean, the Commonwealth over
time will be spending more then the One Nation money
on vocational education.
J: interface between employers and training,
getting people trained for jobs. Obviously an
important part of that is going to be on the job
training and related to that the issue of a training
wage. Is it your objective, in the discussions you
will have tomorrow, to get a broad agreement on the
structure of
PM: I think Kim made the point earlier we are not here
portending tomorrow's outcome, or trying to secondguess
them, that's for you to do.
J: ( inaudible)
PM: Well that is just another way of asking the same
question. Which I got on to in about 3
milliseconds. And I hope within 5 milliseconds to
put an answer back to you saying that is what he
asked.
J: could have a role to play in whatever is decided
in the context of the Carmichael?
PM: Look, let's face this fact, the truth is that in the
growth of the labour market in the ' 80s a lot of the
problems of the transition from school to work, for
untrained people, was overlooked in the great sweep
of employment through the ' 80s. Not by us in terms
of getting the stock of trained people up, obviously
through participation and in the first instance in
tertiary where we had a clear Commonwealth financial
responsibility. But we are taking that further, to
make that transition between schools and work
through vocational education and the pathways which
are comprehended in the Carmichael recommendations,
which Kim has been trying to work through to some
sort of conclusion, that is transferring a report in
to policy. It is there that this matters, it is
there that we will look immediately beyond, as I
said yesterday, in the two things, the first is that
big transition from school to work, and the other
for those teenagers whose later teenage years will
have preceded as fundamental change, those who
are currently unemployed. Now, that's the problem
we will be focussing on tomorrow, and also those
people where with this in place or not in place will
just never take up structured training there will
always be a proportion of people who will never take
up structured training and trying to find a role for
them as well, that's in a sense what Geoff was
asking me about earlier, and which we will be trying
to at least focus upon tomorrow.
J . I mean if it was a long term structural
decline in those types of jobs, I mean how
PM: Well I don't want to go through all that today,
that's for tomorrow.
J: ( inaudible)
KB: Yes, I agree with you that there is a problem there,
but I think it is changing, I think there is a
growing realization that technical and further
education does provide you with a type of education
most likely to be directly related to employment.
Now, as I think as other elements of the agenda
start to impact like the Carmichael proposals, like
the increasing involvement in, for example, of
industries and creation of things like skill centres
of which there have been some forty odd created over
the last few years. As this all begins to come
through what a young person looking at their life
after secondary school has before them is the
prospect of some very highly relevant, well
structured, certificated forms of training open to
them and many may well chose, I think, presented
with that and with a qualitative improvement that
always invariably comes with more money, will look
at a really genuine choice. I think you will find
parental attitudes change, and I think you will find
young peoples attitudes change when confronted with
that, but it will take a couple of years.
PM: And the hobby courses have been stripped out of the
system and the focus only with apprenticeships is
changing and that's why the State training profiles
are going to matter enormously. Because that's
where the status will be, it is with them that will
come the status, but the point I made earlier is the
key point I think, that is it is the bigger issue of
the transition from school to work, which Kim is
working on, which is the issue. This is part of the
facilitation mechanism of that.
J: Why did you describe it as a training emergency?
PM: Because I think that the nature of the economy we
are going to have, the nature of investment in the
1990s is going to be not chasing inflationary gains
but chasing production, that is, we will be looking
at product, product innovation and exports, import
replacement, and it is going to require, that
structure, more trained people than we have been
able to provide in the past and particularly more
jobs for people who are trained as distinct from
those who are untrained.
KB: My department estimates that 80 per cent of the jobs
which will come into our commnunity between now and
the end of the decade will require year 12 standard
of education or above, in order to fill it. We are
not yet at a position where we could say that we are
necessarily meeting those targets, and in those
circumstances that requires activity on our part.
PM: I think one of Australia's great comparative
advantages has been education. In the last 25 years
we let that slip, and to climb back up the
international division of labour we have to reassert
again that comparative advantage. And this
is about some of that re-assertion.
J: Is it your intention to have a national
certification system for TAFE?
KB: Well, of course those sorts or issues are going to
be the life blood of ANTA, the attitudes and the
views that they develop on that over time will be
very important. And as in virtually all other areas
of education, people looking at issues of national
certification, I think in this circumstance industry
is so diverse that you are more likely to sort of
get national recognition of forms of certification,
as opposed to national certification that's more or
less what we are aiming at at this stage, I think
the other objective would be, as they used to say in
the Indian newspapers when I worked there, in
its tendencies.
PM: That will send everyone back to the dictionaries.
J: any of the logistics, like where this is going
to be headquartered and those sort of things?
KB: We haven't worked out headquarters yet, that will be
a matter for the board, the authority.
J: How big a constraint is the fact that the TAFE
systems have a lot of people in them who are
permanent staff who are teaching things of less and
less relevance?
PM: Well that's part of the system, isn't
it, I mean that is what it is about, in part.
J: So some of the money can be used to redundancy
packages etc, etc?
KB: Well I am not sure about that. I think that
basically what is happening in the States at the
moment is a serious addressing of those problems
now. That is happening all over the country, it is
not a problem which has been ignored hitherto,
people have got on to it. I think there is
obviously going to have to be as curicula as changed
as a result of all these investigatory processes and
this process itself. Then there is going to have to
be a considerable amount of re-training for some
teaches and all of them to be able to deliver the
outcomes that people want. But it is premature to
talk about the resources being used in any specific
set of programs to address any individual teachers
problems at this point.
PM: Look, can I just say it is always a pretty good
indication when some of you leave you have had
enough, so I think we will leave to.
ENDS