TAFE deal sets the digital trend for students
Tasmanian TAFE students will reap the benefits of using a globally leading Australian software solution to guide them through their courses, after the institution partnered with TechnologyOne.
A surge in enrolments driven by Fee-Free TAFE places and sweeping policy changes is prompting TAFEs across the country to overhaul their core technology systems to boost efficiencies and meet the heightened expectations of digitally-savvy students.
Tasmanian TAFE students will be the latest to soon be using a globally leading Australian software solution to guide them through their courses, after the organisation partnered with leading local student management system provider TechnologyOne.
The TechnologyOne Student Management solution integrates core business systems into a single platform, streamlining administrative processes, improving service delivery and enhancing the overall student experience.
TasTAFE interim CEO Will McShane said the new digital implementation placed learners at its very heart.
“Investing in this solution will streamline operations across TasTAFE, making day-to-day tasks simpler for our learners and staff. This will, in turn, free up capacity for us to focus on what matters most: delivering quality education and creating real pathways to jobs,” McShane said.
“This solution supports all stages of the learner journey, empowering students with greater control and visibility over their academic experience through the one platform.”
As part of its commitment to TasTAFE, TechnologyOne will also provide five learners with two-week vocational placements at its Brisbane headquarters each year.
David Cope, TechnologyOne’s executive vice-president for education, said: “These placements offer hands-on industry experience for students, allowing them to work alongside our cyber security experts, our R&D engineers, and our support consultants, which gives them really good real life experiences.”
He said TechnologyOne’s unmatched national footprint, combined with its huge commitment to R&D in Australia, meant TasTAFE would benefit from a direct influence on the future product development roadmap.
It comes at a pivotal moment for the TAFE sector after the federal government last year announced a permanent 100,000 Fee-Free places from 2027.
The government has funded more than 500,000 Fee-Free TAFE places in the past three years.
Cope said the new places were driving rapid growth in student numbers and placing new demands on TAFEs’ business models and student management systems.
About 65 per cent of Australian TAFEs now use one or more of TechnologyOne’s OneEducation ERP software products, making the provider the preferred software vendor to Australian TAFEs.
Cope said TechnologyOne’s unique differentiator was its “Power of One” proposition, offering a single vendor, code line and experience to all its customers.
TechnologyOne takes ownership of designing, building, selling, implementing, running and supporting SaaS products and services to guarantee each of its customers long-term success.
“We are the only true SaaS-based provider of student management solutions,” Cope said.
“Our solution enables students or staff to access those services anywhere, anytime, on any device, enabling them to adapt to the ever changing landscape.”
Phil Paterson, the chief executive of Wodonga TAFE, said its partnership with TechnologyOne utilising full electronic enrolment had made student enrolments less labour-intensive and simpler for students to navigate.
“We are seeing a reduced demand for face-to-face or supported enrolment processes, which suggests that streamlining the complex enrolment practices via the use of technology are hitting the mark,” Paterson said.
Paterson suggested that the VET sector could look to Wodonga TAFE’s own TechnologyOne implementation as a technology blueprint that could serve as a model for TAFEs across the country.
“How do we leverage the successes we have had for the benefit of the sector more broadly?” he said.
“I would like to see more sharing and collaboration across the Victorian and National TAFE networks and building deeper partnerships with TechnologyOne especially in relation to Student Management Systems.
“There is significant value in leveraging the full capability of an ERP solution, and continuing to evolve the product to ensure that it represents one source of data and one source of truth for the organisation is important.”
TAFE Directors Australia CEO Jenny Dodd said that in the future people would have increasing access to both tertiary and vocational education throughout their working lives in many different forms, which would require cutting edge technological systems.
“Be that for an apprentice where there are really good touch points, making sure that the apprentice is meeting their milestones, or whether that is for a student who might be taking on a diploma or an advanced diploma, or where someone has secured a higher education qualification and is coming into vocational education,” Dodd said.
TechnologyOne originally started its relationship with Victoria University, supporting its VET sector students before its technology solutions were rolled out to the university’s higher education students.
As artificial intelligence reshapes the workforce, Dodd said she saw a dual challenge – equipping staff and students alike with AI literacy and ethics, while harnessing AI tools to personalise and enhance education delivery.
“That means bringing our teaching staff up to that capability,” she said.
“It also means bringing the student population into a place where they can make good judgments around what they are accessing through generative AI and having a strong understanding of the ethics.
“The data analytics has been with us for a little while now, but we are still not using it to its optimum, and in the future it will help personalise the learning experience and make it possible for students to fall through the cracks less often.”
Cope agreed, and highlighted TechnologyOne’s ongoing commitment to innovation, reinvesting 25 per cent of its revenue into research and development, including AI and machine learning (ML).
“A lot of what we are doing is around simplicity. Simplifying the complex, making things much quicker, single-click applications or enrolments. That will be our focus for the future,” he said.
“How can we put just the right amount of information in the right people’s hands, at the right time? There is a lot to be said for using AI and ML to identify those specific moments in time when you can intervene and support the student experience by simplifying and automating processes.”
