Response to Education Minister Mr Barilaro's letter to Trish Doyle re. BM Tafe. Original letter attached.
Jeanie Rosebug
Dear Mr Barilaro,
We are the students that put in a complaint about Blue Mountains Tafe, which was forwarded to you via our local MP, Trish Doyle. She has forwarded your reply to us.
Thankyou for your response. You have completely failed to address the complaints made in any form whatsoever, and instead defended your abysmal and widely criticised “Smart and Skilled” program in the broadest possible terms!
We feel that your letter and our response should be shared with those “stakeholders” that you appear to have neglected to consult with –and in particular the students at BMtafe - , and so will attach your letter to email, and will copy this to the student google group, as well as to anyone we think may be interested.
Let’s try and clarify things for you. Since you failed to address the actual complaints, we will instead take your statements and try and contextualise things for you.
TAFE Western Sydney, according your letter “continues to innovate to ensure that they deliver flexible and responsive training options for students and employers.”
Um – by your own admission – in your own letter - student numbers in Information Technology Courses have been dropping since 2012. So obviously Tafe Western Sydney isn’t actually providing options that make the courses attractive to students.
As former students, we can tell you why student numbers in Information Technology courses at Western Sydney Tafe are dropping.
The fees are rising at the same time hours are being cut, and the quality of the course material and the teaching standards is terrible.
Regarding fees. This isn’t a high income area – in recent years we have seen more people becoming homeless - and many people here are struggling to feed themselves, let alone educate themselves. Traineeship fees of $1000 are completely out of reach for someone on Newstart. Yet, these are the people that need these skills to get into work. Adding the option to go into debt is looking increasingly dodgy too, especially as the course isn’t up to scratch.
Regarding access to cert4 and diploma level classes. Limiting support to students trying to access better skills and cert4 or diploma level qualifications basically means they don’t get employed at all, and the training costs of getting them to cert 3 level are wasted, as their skills in this rapidly growing - and to quote you – “strong employment outcomes or high employment demand” area become outdated.
Regarding course quality: Part time and casual staff with actual up-to date industry relevant experience are having their hours slashed or being given no teaching hours, while long term, full time staff appear to giving those hours to themselves, despite the fact it means that the curriculum is being stripped of technical subjects.
The subject choices do not include enough relevant material and some of the material that is part of the actual curriculum is now out of date. We have a copy of the curriculum with superseded protocols. Students have been requesting classes teach to the skills employers are calling for since 2012 - and instead have got more “project management” or “OH&S” or “sustainability”, instead. We have been told this is a curriculum decision is based on the smart and skilled program, and that these courses are now pitched at “management level”. Our observation is that students at Western Sydney Tafe who are attending courses in “Information Technology” are not there to learn management skills, they want to learn technical skills. Mt Druitt is currently teaching the same course, but with far more comprehensive emphasis on technical skills. And thus a percentage of Blue Mountains students are forced to travel to Mt Druitt despite the long travel times. In fact I understand that the BMtafe Web diploma course no longer exists as students have had to go elsewhere. Though this is not an option for other students with caring duties or disabilities.
Since hours have been cut, there is not enough teaching time to cover the material that is required knowledge to get a job in this field. Our complaint was initially that the semester was cut short and the classes that students paid for were not taught at all. When two students tried to attend the classes when they were run again they were told that they had been passed on the material!
The response of BMTafe staff has been a big effort to get these students to deny that that this was the case – and to accuse these students of actually, secretly knowing the material but wanting extra classes in it.
It can easily be established that these classes were not taught.
“This decline is largely due to external factors including recent reforms in the higher education sector”… and because of the “Trend away from face to face training towards increased student demand for more flexible and online delivery”.
Rubbish. Who says? Where did this information come from? Not the students at BMTafe I’m guessing.
Are you saying that students are flocking to the innumerable private colleges that your government is funding instead of TAfe? These funds were once directed solely into providing comprehensive education with reliable outcomes. Instead we get a choice between dumb and dumber.
You have not only failed to provide education and training for these students, you have also saddled financially vulnerable people with a debt, while unscrupulous providers keep the cash. Not a very successful outcome.
There is a demand for flexible and online delivery – but as an adjunct to, not as a replacement for – face to face teaching. Online materials are a logical part of a technology class. At Blue Mountains Tafe we got the Moodle. It was abysmal. The best learning environment is a face to face class, which has the added advantage of building networks of people who can work together and share skills. If we want innovation, then these are the networks that are likely to provide it. The real thing, as opposed to the slogan.
You are pushing “flexible and online delivery” as a cost cutting measure in order to cut teacher hours, and to reduce marking and exams, both of which are important to help the teacher see where students need additional instruction – please do not insult us by pretending this is done for the benefit of students.
“While there have been changes to the delivery and the scheduling of classes at the College, the changes have been consistent with enrolment trends and the way the majority of students want to learn.”
In which case, why are enrolments dropping and students leaving? Your enrolment trend says your Smart and Skilled program is terrible.
You state that the “NSW Government is, as you say, investing in initiatives that will make it easier for young people to access training that will help them get a good job.” The private college fiasco is splashed all across the newspapers, there are now thousands of students with a debt for training they will never see and spreading the funding over a whole range of colleges simply means a lot of competing low grade training systems instead of consolidating resources, paying decent teachers and regulating a system that doesn’t get to hide behind “the private sector”.
The system has demonstrably failed.
Where is your accountability? You are obviously pushing an agenda despite the fact you have not bothered to engage with actual students in any meaningful way in order to get real feedback.
Your contempt is evident even in the attached letter, which is a reply to our Local Member, written on our behalf.
We know better than to expect any change. At this point, we would just like to demonstrate to the stakeholders you have neglected to consult just how irrelevant they are to your Government and your policy decisions.
With disgust,
Jeanie Baxter and Sam Asschers.
James Schleibs
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Web Designers Blue Mountains TAFE" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to web-designers-bm...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to web-design...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/web-designers-bmtafe.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Jeanette Learned
Also to clarify a point, allocation of hours has always been to full time teacher programs first. Part time teachers are only used when all full time teacher hours are allocated. We did not choose to cut pt techer hours, there just is not the money in the budget to pay for them. It has been the free choice of all pt teachers (and some ft, like me) to find jobs where there is more reliable funding.
Jeanie Rosebug
That's great. Glad to hear it didn't disappear altogether. How are you finding it?