Kangan Batman TAFE teacher finalist in training awards
31 August 2004
Pauline Porcaro
Kangan Batman TAFE Teacher Pauline Porcaro was a finalist in the Victorian TAFE's Outstanding Teacher of the Year 2004 at a gala presentation at Crown Palladium recently.
Pauline was one of three finalists at the Victorian Training Awards 2004 in the Victorian TAFE Association Outstanding Teacher/Trainer of the Year category. Ms Porcaro is Program Coordinator in the Tourism area of the Department of Hospitality, Travel and Tourism at Kangan Batman TAFE.
"Being a finalist in this Award is a career highlight for me personally and a public acknowledgement of the great team and outstanding students I have worked with at Kangan Batman TAFE over the past 11 years," said Ms Porcaro.
"I always wanted to teach," Ms Porcaro said. "I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts but didn't complete the Diploma of Education because I felt too young and unskilled to teach. I worked for Qantas for 11 years, then I went back to my original love - teaching." She completed the graduate education diploma and became an advanced skills teacher at Kangan Batman in 1993, gaining promotion to program coordinator within two years.
The judges commended Ms Porcaro's initiative in developing student involvement in the Tourism Student Business Initiative (TSBI). In 1999 she organised the department's first entries in this statewide competition which asked students to develop a business plan for a viable tourism business idea. In the four years of the statewide TSBI competition, Kangan Batman TAFE students received 13 of the 24 prizes awarded. The competition involved more than 120 Kangan Batman students in a highly rewarding experience.
When funding for the competition was withdrawn last year, Ms Porcaro decided it was too valuable to lose. "We were disappointed but I simply organised our own Kangan Batman competition in 2003, and then set about reviving the award," she said. "I wrote a submission with our marketing department and we were granted $15,000 from the federal government." The prize will have a new name and will be run by Tourism Training Victoria.
"The competition has become so important there are two or three other TAFEs who now offer it as a compulsory part of their tourism and travel courses."
A current postgraduate student herself, Ms Porcaro has refereed and helped many students into university. "Right now I am using my Masters of Education degree studies at Monash, to find ways to measure what made students successful in this whole process," Ms Porcaro said. "From my surveying I am convinced that they wanted to do well and they felt they had the support to do well.
"Even some negative and rather unmotivated students came through with 100 per cent involvement. They don't ever miss appointments. They don't dropout and nearly all finish their plans," she said.
Kangan Batman TAFE hosts 24,000 students across seven campuses in Melbourne's north west and inner suburbs. It is Victoria's major training provider for the automotive, aerospace and polymer industries and one of the state's largest providers of trainee and apprenticeship training and VET in Schools education.
Ms Porcaro has worked hard to develop pathways between Kangan Batman TAFE and Latrobe University. "I believe strongly in the value of TAFE's industry focus, which develops practical skills and knowledge, before students take on University studies," she said.
