Daniel Wills: TAFE SA report puts State Government into another crisis, and ministers reach for a well-worn script

CABINET has lost faith in top bureaucrats running SA’s TAFE system. Parents, and students who want the skills to get ahead in tough times, will send their blame right to the top, writes Daniel Wills.

• MINISTER: ‘Highly likely’ other TAFE SA courses affected
• TAFE CRISIS: CEO quits, courses cut, students without accreditation
• BASIC FAILURES: What the report found

HIGHER Education and Skills Minister Susan Close has lost confidence in just about everyone who’s running TAFE, and can’t be surprised if the public does the same.

Their fury won’t stop with a couple of bureaucrats and board members, but run right to the top as students and parents dump the blame for this latest bungle right on the Cabinet table.

There’s now a well-practised crisis management script for State Government ministers that has been perfected through disasters in energy, employment, child protection and health.

The names and titles change each time, but the performance is always the same.

When a Royal Commission found Families SA to be a complete basket case, after more than a decade of warnings, Premier Jay Weatherill claimed ignorance as his defence.

Education Minister Susan Close on Tuesday. Picture: Calum Robertson

Every time something was botched in the hospital system under former health minister Jack Snelling’s watch, responsibility would roll downhill to someone in middle management.

When the Chief Psychiatrist blamed the Oakden disaster on a culture of cover-up and warned that “the fish rots from the head”, mental health minister Leesa Vlahos stayed in place.

Dr Close has a better defence than most. TAFE SA is deliberately set up to be somewhat at arm’s length from the State Government, a move designed to deliver better management.

But taxpayers will expect that the minister in charge does more than deal with a crisis when it emerges, but take an active interest at every step along the way to stop it occurring in the first place.

Taxpayers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on TAFE and expect that it will be used wisely.

A huge number of jobs there have recently been slashed, as Cabinet watched on.

Now, with a new academic year and state election just around the corner, Dr Close says she will take “swift” action to ensure this agency in crisis brings its performance up to scratch.

That looks to be a daunting, and maybe close to impossible, task.

The Government has now conceded what anyone with even a passing interest can see is screamingly obvious.

TAFE had a 100 per cent fail rate in the 16 courses that were audited. Fourteen of them were in such a poor condition that they can’t be taught until their standards are turned around.

It seems obvious, in fact “highly likely” that many more which haven’t yet been examined would also get a giant red F if anyone had curiosity enough to look under the hood.

Young people are getting ready now to graduate from or leave high school and enter an uncertain job market in SA that is reeling from the Holden shutdown and other flagging industries.

Within a few months, many would have hoped to start studies and gain skills to find a decent job and make a respectable living. That confidence, most sadly, must now be deeply wounded.

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