TAFE budget cuts open door further for private providers

Sweeping budget cuts to TAFE institutes in the Victorian State Budget will force TAFE colleges into even greater competition with private course providers, according to the education comparison website CompareCourses.com.au.

The Victorian Government has announced funding cuts to 80% of TAFE courses including cuts to many popular hospitality, business and IT courses.

In a move to 'refocus' spending to areas identified with skills shortages, the Government will increase subsidies for courses in carpentry, engineering, aged care, disability and children's services amongst others.

Tom Davies, CEO for Compare Courses, said: "TAFE institutions in Victoria are already struggling with increased competition from private sector providers and will be hit hard by these changes, forcing redundancies and possibly campus closures.”

In the past year Compare Courses has seen demand by students for private providers increase by over 30%. In April 2012, search enquiries for private providers on its site surpassed that of TAFE providers for the first time, accounting for 51% of all TAFE level course enquiries vs 39% a year ago.

There has been a dramatic rise in the number of students enrolling at private colleges over the last three years and the changes to funding will only increase this further. Whilst much of the focus has been on the prices of courses offered by private providers, Tom Davies believes that TAFEs have much to learn from private providers' approaches to marketing.

"Private colleges are very focused on delivering a specific set of courses, in a flexible way to a clearly defined target market. They run highly effective online marketing campaigns and don’t waste money on untargeted brand advertising. They attract students by reaching them in the place their demographic is most likely to see it – online. Publicly funded institutes could learn a lot from private colleges on how to deliver courses that people want, in the way people want to learn, without spending too much money on getting students through the door."

Students who are concerned the course they were hoping to study might be dropped at their local TAFE should not be too concerned as there are plenty of affordable alternatives, Mr Davies added. However, he did caution that students need to carefully assess the quality of teaching and services offered, as the cheapest offering is not always the best.

"Students who want to gain a qualification to further their career should do their research both online first and then visit the provider and compare the quality and services offered by different educational institutions, before selecting a course that suits their budget, lifestyle and their learning needs."

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About Compare Courses

CompareCourses.com.au started in 2010 and has grown to be Australia's largest course comparison website. It has a database of almost a 1000 different training providers around Australia including all of Australia’s TAFE and Universities. Every week tens of thousands of students use its search engine to find the courses and institutions they want.