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Vocational training

This Month

Construction is a national priority area benefiting from fee-free TAFE places.

Business Council rejects legislating fee-free TAFE

The government is hoping to bake into legislation 100,000 free TAFE places a year, but the Business Council of Australia is arguing against the idea.

  • Julie Hare

December 2024

Stacey Toskas with 2nd year Joinery apprentice Rebecca Daley, at NICCO Timber Windows and Doors in Kingsgrove,

Why we got it wrong on education and skill shortages

After 15 years of policies encouraging people to go to university, Australia’s skills tsar says it is now time for a reset if we are to address chronic skill shortages.

  • Julie Hare

October 2024

Kelly McJannett, founder of Food Ladder.

AI greenhouses feed remote communities and educate children

Food Ladder installs AI greenhouses in remote communities to feed people and educate their children about the benefits of healthy fresh produce.

  • Christopher Niesche
All up, 226 McDonald’s franchisees used the program, according to documents obtained by The Australian Financial Review under freedom of information.

Taxpayers paid McDonald’s $72m to train its staff

McDonald’s Australia and its franchisees were the biggest beneficiaries of the Coalition’s $5.8 billion trainee and apprenticeship wage subsidy, documents show.

  • Ronald Mizen
Dozens of vocational colleges are taking extreme measures to enrol as many overseas students as possible before the end of the year.

Desperate colleges lure agents, students with cash offers

With the introduction of student caps looming, desperate vocational colleges are using unethical practices to shore up numbers.

  • Julie Hare
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Student caps are not about controlling migration numbers, a senate hearing was told.

Student caps not for migration reasons, Senate hearing told

An employment department official said student caps were not intended to bring down net migration, an explanation at odds with what the government says.

  • Julie Hare

September 2024

Gary Coonar will be forced to remove a recent $400,000 fitout to a commercial kitchen due to lack of students.

Banned colleges allocated thousands of places under student caps

Private vocational colleges say the allocation of caps for new international students for 2025 has been a ramshackle process.

  • Julie Hare

June 2024

Caps on foreign student numbers could devastate the economy, say university leaders.

Teal MPs seek softening of foreign student cap laws

Legislation to cap the number of international students will be debated this week – even as visa numbers are in dramatic decline.

  • Julie Hare

June 2024

PhD student Dan McDougall decided public relations was not for him.

Higher education key to bigger pay, Labor MP argues

When it comes to the relationship between education and earning capacity, research suggests more is better.

  • Julie Hare

May 2024

Midwifery students will be among those to receive a weekly payment during compulsory placements.

Labor to give teaching, nursing students $320 per week payment

Teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students will receive a weekly payment to help offset the costs of mandatory placements.

  • Julie Hare

April 2024

Student numbers for March are the lowest for a decade.

International student numbers slump as reforms bite

Only 46,570 students landed in Australia to begin their studies last month.

  • Julie Hare
International students have started shifting their study preferences to other countries.

Visa rejections hit record as overseas students top 700,000

There were 713,000 international students living in Australia in February, but a corner has been turned as visa rejections pile up.

  • Julie Hare

March 2024

TAFE in NSW is set for an overhaul that will ensure it meets local community needs.

NSW to return TAFEs to centre of local communities

After years of policy “fixes” gone wrong, NSW aims to give TAFEs a new lease of life.

  • Julie Hare
Jason Clare and Mary O’Kane launching the universities accord.

Have we just laid out a plan to kill the traditional university?

The universities accord says that the number of university students needs to double by 2050. That raises the question of what we actually want from our universities.

  • Julie Hare

February 2024

Education minister Jason Clare launching with universities accord at Western Sydney University with Energy Minister Chris Bowen and UWS vice chanceller Jennifer Westacott.

Bright, poor students guaranteed a uni spot

Aspiring university students whose families earn less than $54,000 a year will be guaranteed a place in a degree if they meet admission benchmarks.

  • Julie Hare
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Unlike most of his peers, Anthony Debrincat entered his electrical apprenticeship in his 30s.

The group saying no to uni: white, male, and would rather be a tradie

The Albanese government wants to get more kids into universities, but a new study on apprentices shows there is a clear cohort with no interest in a degree.

  • Julie Hare
Persistently low apprenticeship completion rates are undermining economic growth.

Review to hammer out apprenticeship problem

Only half of all apprentices complete their training, despite billions in funding going into ensuring they do. A new review is looking for a solution.

  • Julie Hare

January 2024

Overseas students are blocked from undertaking trade apprenticeships despite chronic skill shortages, particularly in construction.

Call to lift ban on foreigners doing trade apprenticeships

Most international students are not allowed to undertake a trade apprenticeship in Australia. Changing that could help the worsening skills’ crisis.

  • Updated
  • Julie Hare
Entry-level positions in typically female-dominated jobs such as aged and disability care pay just slightly more than the minimum wage.

The new working poor is educated and female

A new report sheds the light on how poorly vocational graduates are paid, especially if they are female.

  • Julie Hare

December 2023

Reforms to visas and regulations seek to clamp down on dishonest students, colleges and agents.

100,000 foreign ‘students’ won’t come or will go home under reforms

Over the next year, an estimated 100,000 ‘students’ will either not arrive under new migration rules, or will be pushed to return home.

  • Julie Hare

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/vocational-training-1mtr