AEU says Shaping our Future report highlights the need to boost TAFE investment

The recently released Shaping Our Future; A ten-year strategy to ensure a sustainable, high-quality children’s education and care workforce 2022–2031 report highlights the critical need for greater investment in TAFE, the Australian Education Union (AEU) has said. 

“As Shaping Our Future states, declining enrolments in approved educator qualifications along with increasing demand for qualified early childhood staff have created urgent workforce challenges for the early childhood sector,” AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe said.

“This highlights the pressing need for the Federal Government to invest in TAFE and help ensure a sustainable supply of highly skilled early childhood educators.”

Without this investment, she continued, the early childhood sector will become “increasingly unable to function,” making it harder for parents to go to work and leaving children without the benefits of a high quality early education.

TAFE, she said, is ideally placed to educate the early childhood workforce, and in turn to address the workforce shortages the sector faces. 

Importantly, TAFE’s regional footprint would enable governments to target local needs more effectively, ensuring students can study and potentially work in their local communities. 

“Restoring (TAFE) funding would create a triple dividend for Australia; a skilled, capable early childhood workforce, increased parent workforce participation to boost the economy and improved early learning outcomes for Australian children,” Ms Haythorpe added.

To access the report please see here.