BRUMBY TAFE FEE HIKES HURTING FRANKSTON      

Inga Peulich, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for South Eastern Metropolitan Region and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education told State Parliament today that increases to TAFE fees introduced by the Brumby Government are hurting the Frankston community.

In what has been seen as a major blow to the Brumby Government, several TAFE institutes are reporting a slump in enrolments and some Frankston students are not applying because of higher government fees.

Ms Peulich said the Brumby Government last year tripled fees for diploma and advanced diploma courses over four years and introduced a new HECs style loan scheme.

“What we have seen throughout the whole issue is the Brumby Government turning its back on Frankston students and families,” Ms Peulich said.

“The Brumby Government spent $16.1 million on a communication strategy to promote the TAFE changes through print and television advertisements, websites and brochures, yet not one effort was made to address fee increase concerns from Frankston students.”

Ms Peulich told State Parliament that the community concerns over TAFE fee increases from Frankston students were raised by the Victorian Coalition at the time the policy was released but ignored by the Brumby Government and local MPs.

“For the first time in Victoria’s history, TAFE students are being forced to access a HECS style loan scheme to pay fees,” Ms Peulich said.

“Research shows that economic barriers are the biggest hurdle to low income students being able to access education and further studies, Labor’s education reforms will hurt some of Frankston’s most vulnerable citizens.”

Victorian TAFE Association executive director David Williams said today “we’ve heard of cases where people were actually turning up to enrol, but when they heard about the fee increases, a number of them walked away.”

Australian Education Union deputy branch secretary Gillian Robertson said the policy had already resulted in some course cancellations and was affecting disadvantaged people, particularly in courses that used to be subject to government concessions, such as community welfare and development, business studies and engineering.

Ms Peulich said it should be a concern to all Frankston residents that the local Labor MPs must continue to apologise to the local community for the constant failures of John Brumby and his Ministers.