Officials from the Department of Education and Training had a terrible time in Senate Estimates yesterday as Labor senator Doug Cameron asked difficult questions about their failed apprenticeship management system -including having to take on notice who the training minister was when there were first problems. But there was some good VET news yesterday, and it is while since CMM could write that.

The estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research reports that while 2016-17 full-year apprentice and trainee numbers were down 2.8 per cent, starts in the ’17 December quarter were up 7.6 per cent on the previous year.