Tradespeople needed to curb future TAFE teacher shortage
01 November 2002
Kangan Batman TAFE is offering a new teaching course in Richmond to address the shortage of TAFE teachers in a range of trades.
Shortages of trade teachers in the automotive, building, furniture, electrical, aviation or polymer industries - all areas of training offered at Kangan Batman TAFE - have led the institute to offer a course to retrain tradespeople as teachers.
The Diploma in Vocational Education and Training (VET) is nationally accredited and will enable tradespeople to gain a teacher-training qualification and make a career change to teaching.
Over 100 participants are currently undertaking the Diploma at Kangan Batman's Broadmeadows campus and a number have already secured employment in the vocational education sector.
A new program is now being offered at Kangan Batman TAFE's Richmond campus to service the south-east region of Melbourne.
An information session on the course is being held on Wednesday 27th November 2002, at Kangan Batman TAFE's Broadmeadows campus.
Course Coordinator Anne Stasiak said the special program had been developed in recognition of predicted future shortages of teachers.
"It has been predicted that within the next four years there will be a vast shortage of teachers. A recent report on trends in the TAFE workforce showed that within the next ten years, there will be a large departure of TAFE teachers, mostly due to retirements", Ms Stasiak explained.
"It will be increasingly difficult to replace these staff and meet the demand for skilled TAFE teachers unless we can reverse the trend of low numbers of people participating in teacher-training courses".
According to Ms Stasiak, teaching is a well-paid and rewarding career. “Teachers play an important role in developing the skill levels of tradespeople of the future. It provides a great career path, with job security and good working conditions,” she said.
On successful course completion, teachers gaining employment at TAFE colleges will hold courses predominantly during the day, but there is also a need for after-hours or evening sessions, to fit in with the needs of apprentices or mature-age students who work full-time.
Participants in the Diploma course will also have the opportunity to develop specialist technical or academic skills as part of their Diploma studies.
The Diploma course commences early February 2003. It runs for 12 months and has been structured to enable students to attend on a part-time basis, during evenings or at weekends.
For further information regarding the Diploma or the information session, contact Anne Stasiak at Kangan Batman TAFE on 9353 1874.
