Northern Tasmania’s Australian Technical College is under a cloud and we must fight to keep it. The Rudd Labor Government hates the ATC model, the brainchild of the former Howard Government to help address the skills-shortage and to provide a new, industry-led model of vocational training and college education.
I worked tirelessly to achieve an ATC campus in Launceston because of my belief in raising educational quality and choice. It was an effort to bring together all the interested parties and to lead a process of genuine collaboration. It was as much a fight against negativity and disgraceful undermining….
Today, the ATC is a great success with 280 students – having overcome constant criticism from state and federal Labor identities and even Jodie Campbell who had the gall to officially open the Inveresk campus. The ATCNT has proven its tremendous value by meeting the needs of local industry and giving new opportunity for our young people.
Our community should demand a strong future for the Australian Technical Colleges out of concern for our young people, industry and maintaining our reputation as a centre of educational excellence.
The lack of support for our ATC’s from state and federal Labor is a terrible indictment on the representation we are getting here in Northern Tasmania.
While David Bartlett is preoccupied with the disastrous Tasmania Tomorrow reforms, opportunities for young people have taken a big hit. With the reforms in disarray, the case for choice and opportunity in vocational education is clearer than ever.
And it’s not as of this scenario has come as any shock – both governments were warned long ago. The Federal Members for Bass and Braddon have both received requests for assistance from the ATC and it is my understanding that Mr Sidebottom has given a one line reply while Ms Campbell has offered no response whatsoever.
What’s needed now is genuine and vocal support from all our elected members. Who will stand up for choice, opportunity, competition and our young people?
Count me in.
When you use the phrase “labor shortage” or “skills shortage” you’re speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually mean to say is: “There is a labor shortage at the salary level I’m willing to pay.” That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence and the intellectually honest statement.
Employers speak about shortages as though they represent some absolute, readily identifiable lack of desirable services. Price is rarely accorded its proper importance in their discussion.
If you start raising wages and improving working conditions, and continue doing so, you’ll solve your shortage and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.
Re: Shortage caused by employees retiring out of the workforce: With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, most people entering retirement age are working well into their sunset years. So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.
Okay, fine. Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, the solution is higher wages and improved benefits. People will self-fund their re-education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state. The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to self-fund their own career re-education.
There is never enough of any good or service to satisfy all wants or desires. A buyer, or employer, must give up something to get something. They must pay the market price and forego whatever else he could have for the same price. The forces of supply and demand determine these prices — and the price of a skilled workman is no exception. The buyer can take it or leave it. However, those who choose to leave it (because of lack of funds or personal preference) must not cry shortage. The good is available at the market price. All goods and services are scarce, but scarcity and shortages are by no means synonymous. Scarcity is a regrettable and unavoidable fact.
Shortages are purely a function of price. The only way in which a shortage has existed, or ever will exist, is in cases where the “going price” has been held below the market-clearing price.
The public meeting in Burnie on Wednesday night:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/05/2734012.htm
My only criticism of this story is the incorrect statement that the ATC is closing because “Federal funding running out”. Rather, the Federal Government together with the Bartlett Labor Government have picked out this ATC and made a decision to terminate it.
Tonight I attended the public meeting in Launceston – and it wasn’t pretty. There were many disillusioned and angry students with their parents. They are telling me they will join the fight to save our ATC and will not stop until they succeed. Another public meeting has been called with the express purpose of demanding the presence of David Bartlett, Jodie Campbell, Michelle O’Byrne and Julie Gillard to explain themselves and their terrible decision to disrupt students’ learning and this true education revolution.
If the ATC does close would it be practical for a new Liberal state government to bring it back (even without federal backing) ?