Legislation is before the Federal Parliament to allocate at least 100,000 government-funded VET places each year as Free TAFE places.

The Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment is examining the legislation and has received 66 submissions on the bill. It has also held two public hearings with more than 30 witnesses appearing to give evidence.

One of the key issued raised in a number of submissions has been the effectiveness of the current Free TAFE funding program, which only started to be rolled out in January 2023. Some organisations and witnesses questioned whether there had been sufficient time to determine the effectiveness of Free TAFE and they argued that this kind of evaluation needed to be done before Free TAFE funding should be legislated.

One of the key concerns raised was the completion rate of Free TAFE programs relative to other government-funded VET programs.

Completion rates in VET have been below 50% for many years – and there are a range of reasons why they are not higher – but as the NCVER Student Outcomes Survey consistently shows VET students who don’t complete full qualifications still have high levels of satisfaction with VET (albeit not as high as those who complete their full course.

Data provided by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to the Senate inquiry indicates that more than 568,000 students have so far enrolled in Free TAFE courses, and many of these enrolments have been in national priority industry areas (eg one-third have been in construction and care sector courses).

There has also been a high proportion of students from priority cohorts enrolling in Free TAFE. For example, in 2023:

  • First Nations students: 6.7% in Free TAFE vs 3.5% in the wider VET sector
  • Students with disability: 7.6% vs 3.8%
  • Women: 61.8% vs 46.2%
  • Regional and remote students: 35.9% vs 26.8%.

The data on the completion rates of students enrolling in Free TAFE is still only partial because VET qualifications can take years to complete and the NCVER typically uses 4-year timescales to measure completion. But in the first 20 months of the program 110,400 students have so far completed their Free TAFE programs and DEWR officials advise that this is steadily increasing over time.

The Senate Committee is due to issue its report on the legislation later this week.