I think that the shortage is far more complicated than just blaming changes to TAFE. When we were in school in the 1970’s at least 60% of students left in Year 10. Only the brightest went onto the HSC and then university. The ones that left went to TAFE. The boys did a trade, the girls did the secretarial course. All kids now stay on to Year 12. Many of them enroll in university courses which cause significant debt and no real pathway to decent jobs. The kids today are not that interested in trades. They can’t put their phones down. Not keen on working in the heat and cringe at the idea of having to fix someone’s septic system. Toss in the low wages and they really isn’t much interest from the young ones. In this area most of the courses fell over because of lack of students enrolling. If you think there is a crisis now it will get worse as a huge cohort of very experienced tradesmen are set to retire in the next 5 years.
