Father of public VET Bruce Mackenzie has slammed the education system for under-resourcing training while risking, “churning out graduates who will become the educated poor, with skills formation a casualty because we do not embrace applied education at a tertiary level.”

“Inept educational policy will do less overt but more damage to our country than any pink batt or banking fiasco,” the visionary former head of Holmeslgen TAFE said at a TAFE awards event.

He added that the government’s attempt to encourage university engagement with industry is “a waste of time, politically difficult and does not use the extraordinary capabilities that exist in our large diversified TAFE institutions.”

And Mr Mackenzie warned, that Australia was ignoring international trends. “The combination of research and applied universities at the tertiary level is a global trend. We seem to have stopped learning from others.”

He called for VET to be an issue at the next federal election, adding “it is almost 50 years since we reviewed our VET system at a national level.”