We need your help with our petition to table in Parliament.
The CPSU NSW is proud to represent administrative and support staff at TAFE NSW who are on the front line, doing the incredible work needed to maintain TAFE as a world class vocational education provider.
Unfortunately, for more than eight years TAFE has been grossly underfunded and undervalued by a Coalition Government eager to force TAFE into competition with privately run education providers, following the introduction of the Smart & Skilled program for VET funding in 2015.
The quality and efficiency of TAFE, as well as the steady declining participation in TAFE courses is related to the Government’s underfunding, as well as the hostile environment of private competition that TAFE has been forced to operate in.
Download a copy of our petition HERE.
Last month Premier Berejiklian launched a Government review into the whole NSW VET sector, to be led by education expert David Gonski and former public servant Peter Shergold.
This review represents an opportunity for the community, and the CPSU NSW to build pressure on the Government, by highlighting the mismanagement and lack of adequate funding of the organisation over the past several years. And that it must be reversed to restore TAFE to the highly respected public vocational institution it once was.
The position of the CPSU NSW, as well as the NSW Opposition, is clearly at odds with Premier Berejiklian, who last month declared her eagerness for “the private sector to play a bigger role in the delivery of courses”, as reported HERE.
This clearly represents privatisation of TAFE by stealth. And we intend to fight it.
We need to send a huge message to the Premier that her plans for privatisation of TAFE by stealth is opposed by the vast majority of NSW people.
You can help to do that by downloading the petition HERE, gathering signatures and posting a completed petition back to the address provided; ideally by the end of April.
Once we have reached 10,000 signatures the issue will be immediately be brought on by the Opposition in Parliament for debate.
This is a state-wide issue which has been made particularly urgent now in helping regional communities rebuild, given the devastating summer bushfires and the drought.
There are also presently organising wide-scale on-the-ground action to bring this message home to the Government and will update the membership on this soon.
We ask members to please join the campaign to rebuild TAFE by printing off a copy/copies of the petition. Please return completed petitions to:
CPSU NSW
160 Clarence Street
Sydney 2000
