by CLAIRE FIELD

Data demonstrates why the former federal government struggled to impose a more nationally consistent approach to VET funding

Last week the National Centre VER released the latest government-funded VET statistics, which showed a total of 1.25m students enrolled in government-funded VET in 2021, a 5 per cent increase on 2020.

While there has been a 12 per cent increase in government-funded TAFE students between 2017 and 2021, there was a modest decline (-2 per cent) between 2020 and 2021. During the five years to 2021 there was a 19 per cent increase in government-funded students studying with private VET providers and a 20 per cent decline in government-funded students at community providers.

The data provides some of the reason why the former federal government struggled to impose a more nationally consistent approach to VET funding.

Looking beneath the national figures, government-funded students in TAFE declined between 2017 and 2021 in South Australia (-16 per cent), Tasmania (-6 per cent), Western Australia (-5 per cent) and the ACT and NSW (by just -1 per cent in each jurisdiction). Queensland however has the lowest proportion of government-funded students enrolled in TAFE – with just 39 per cent of all government-funded Queensland VET students studying at TAFE, compared with 56 per cent enrolled at private providers (albeit TAFE’s share has increased from 34 per cent in 2017).

Also of note is the change in the number of government-funded VET students in each jurisdiction between 2017 and 2021. On this measure the Northern Territory is the outlier – with government-funded students dropping from 21 905 to 16 625. Victoria also saw a decline (-1 per cent) in government-funded places, due in part to the higher costs involved in funding its Free TAFE commitments. All other jurisdictions increased the number of VET students they funded over the five years to 2021, some by a considerable amount.

The proportion of their working age populations that state and territory governments funded to undertake a VET course in 2021 ranged from a high of 11 per cent of the working age population in South Australia to a low of just 4 per cent in Western Australia.

There are also interesting differences at the state and territory level in the types of courses which governments fund and, as the estimable Gerald Burke’s research identifies, these are not driven by political ideologies. For example, the NSW and Western Australian governments have strong similarities in the types of courses they fund, as did the (former) South Australian and the Queensland governments.

There is more detailed analysis on my website.

 Claire Field is an advisor to the tertiary education sector