Young people who are keen on careers in VET-based occupations do not know that TAFE is where they can acquire needed skills, a new survey of student awareness of the training system finds.

According to Jennifer Gore and seven colleagues from the University of Newcastle and Kathryn Holmes from Western Sydney U, “many students, parents/carers and teachers perceived TAFE as only for the less academically capable students.

“Some students, in particular, believed that their occupational futures would be more constrained without a university education, in terms of both options and future success,” they write in new research  published by the estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

The authors’ survey demonstrates that TAFE has less an image than an awareness problem, that potential students and families have no idea of what the public training system does and many see it “as a lower-status destination, one designed for students who are unsuited to university study.”

“If current and projected skill shortages are to be addressed, there is a pressing need for TAFE to consider how it might attract a more diverse sample of school students.”