Labor says state government has fallen short on promise to boost TasTAFE teacher numbers

Labor has accused the state government of falling short on a promise to employ an additional 100 TAFE teachers – the Liberals say only 40 FTEs have so far been hired, but committed to 100 by 2025.

Labor's Josh Willie speaks to the media on Parliament Lawns in Hobart on Tuesday, October 10, 2023.

Labor has accused the state government of falling short on a promise to employ an additional 100 TasTAFE teachers.

Former Liberal leader Peter Gutwein promised before the 2021 state election that his party would spend $98.5m over four years for improvements to TAFE including hiring 100 new teachers.

The number of TAFE teachers fell the following year.

Labor‘s TAFE spokesman Josh Willie said figures supplied by the government and the latest TAFE annual report revealed that only 26 out of the 100 promised new teachers had been hired so far.

“In 2021, the Liberal government made some bold promises when it comes to TasTAFE,” he said.

“They committed to employing 100 new TasTAFE teachers and they said that their reforms would make TasTAFE more flexible and more like the businesses it serves.

“Tasmanians do not like it when governments don’t do what they say they would do.

“One hundred new TasTAFE teachers would be a huge boost for Tasmanians trying to upskill to enter the workforce, it will be a huge boost for businesses, there are many TasTAFE type courses that are unavailable.

Mr Willie said a Labor government would offer a range of incentives to help both students and teachers seeking TasTAFE qualifications.

He said he understood negotiations for the next enterprise bargaining agreement were not going well.

Minister for Skills, Training and Workforce Growth Felix Ellis said Labor’s figures were out of date.

“We’ve had an increase now of 40 full time equivalent teachers for TasTAFE and that’s been a huge investment by our government,” he said.

“We’re committed to delivering 100 new TAFE teachers by 2025 because we have a growing workforce.

“We’ve delivered a 40 per cent uplift for apprentices over the last five years and frankly, that’s in stark contrast to Labor who didn’t even mention apprentices or TAFE teachers in their so-called Right Priorities Plan.

“Their record in government was blowing up TasTAFE.

“We put it back together, we put it on a strong footing and now we’ve set up the framework for TAFE to grow.”