How well did the VET sector align with government priorities in 2023?

Since the election of the Federal government in 2022 on an election platform focussed on puttingTAFE at the centre of VET, there has been funding available for a range of TAFE initiatives, including Fee Free TAFE.

The National Skills Agreement between the Australian, State and Territory governments mandates 70% of government-funding for VET is to be allocated to TAFE Institutes and dual-sector universities, includes specific commitments to Fee Free TAFE places, TAFE Centres of Excellence and other initiatives, but it wasn’t signed until late 2023.

However funding for Fee Free TAFE was made available for students commencing in January 2023 through a series of one-year funding agreements announced in December 2022. In those agreements States and Territories were allocated funding by the Australian government for a certain number of Fee Free TAFE places for students in 2023.

While Fee Free TAFE places are not separately identified in the NCVER data on government-funded VET, the latest data for 2023 shows some surprising trends in VET enrolments in different jurisdictions.

Specifically government-funded enrolments in VET programs (full qualifications, accredited courses and skillsets) in TAFE Institutes and dual-sector universities grew between 2019 and 2023 in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory and declined elsewhere.

Not every jurisdiction has a separate adult and community education sector, but in those that do government-funded enrolments increased in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia between 2019 and 2023.

Somewhat counter-intuitively given the emphasis of governments on the TAFE sector, government-funded enrolments in private providers increased between 2019 and 2023 in every jurisdiction except Queensland and the ACT. (Note that enrolments in TAFE also declined in the ACT reflecting a broader shift away from VET in the ACT, and note also that the enrolments being analysed here are program enrolments, ie longer courses, and not the single subject/unit enrolments that accounts for a lot of private provider domestic fee-for-service activity.)

The new National Skills Plan, underpinning the National Skills Agreement, articulates the following industry priorities for VET:

• Clean energy/net zero transition
• Care sector
• Advanced manufacturing (including food security)
• Digital
• Housing construction

The Top 10 training packages with the highest numbers of government-funded program enrolments in 2023 are shown below. Note that ‘non-training package program enrolments’ were the most popular government-funded courses, although their rate of increase between 2019 and 2023 (1%) was lower than the overall rate of increase (9%).

With some exceptions (including non-training package programs) there is a reasonably strong alignment between the key priorities of the Australian government and the most popular training packages by enrolments in 2023.

The increase in enrolments between 2019 and 2023 in the training packages linked to the government’s priorities are also noticeably strong.

Government-funded program enrolments by training package (2019, 2023)

In summary – 2023 saw VET students enrolling in training packages linked to important priority industries, but the pattern of enrolments in TAFE Institutes versus private and community providers was much more mixed.