Government moves to give Drysdale independence from TasTAFE
A push to give Drysdale greater independence has been welcomed by the hospitality and tourism industries.
Tasmania
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THE Government is moving to give Drysdale its own board, budget and constitution in a bid to improve enrolments and outcomes at the ailing tourism and hospitality training school.
The Government on Thursday released a tender for a consultancy to build a business case to run the tourism and hospitality training school as a subsidiary company of TasTAFE — something the Tasmanian Hospitality Association and Tourism Industry Council Tasmania have been demanding for years.
The change would keep Drysdale under the TasTAFE umbrella, but give the school greater independence and more opportunities for industry collaboration.
Consultancies interested in looking at the business case for spinning Drysdale out of TasTAFE will be asked to consider governance and leadership, industrial relations and human resource leadership, learning, teaching and finance modelling of the proposed subsidiary.
Tasmanian Hospitality Association chief executive Steve Old said his organisation was “rapt” progress was being made on improving Drysdale.
His sector was struggling with shortages of chefs, cooks and front-of-house staff.
“It’s common knowledge that Drysdale has lost its reputation it had 20 years ago as being the number one hospitality and tourism training school, not only in the state but in the country,” Mr Old said.
“You name it, the industry’s got shortages.”
Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive Luke Martin said the release of the tender was “a positive step that’s a long time coming”.
“It shows they’re moving towards that model [of independence], which is what we want,” Mr Martin said.
A report released in 2017 said changes to Drysdale’s governance, operations and funding were critical to address labour and skills shortages in Tasmania’s fast-growing tourism and hospitality sectors.
Information released to Labor under right to information laws earlier this year revealed low completion rates among Drysdale enrolments.
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