A POTENTIAL merger between GippsTAFE and Chisholm Institute of TAFE will be workshopped over the coming months, through a Memorandum of Understanding signed between parties exploring joint course delivery models.
GippsTAFE chair John Mitchell confirmed to The Express on Friday a “very robust and extensive review of options” was underway, designed to form a business model of operations and course delivery to improve the financial viability of the institutions.
“We are asking how we can share our product delivery and capabilities while reducing our costs – we are being very methodical about gathering factual information to actually guide us into what we think is the best option,” Mr Mitchell said.
However he said the process review was far too early to rule in or out potential outcomes, including timelines, curriculum arrangements or employment outcomes.
“We are anxious to undertake investigations as quickly as we can – the only thing I can say is we are not commencing any of this with predetermined conditions or positions on what should occur,” Mr Mitchell said.
News of the arrangement comes after a tumultuous period of restructure for GippsTAFE, forced by $300 million in State Government funding cuts to the sector in May last year.
The restructure saw course offerings slashed, about 80 staff made redundant, and remaining course fees increased, leading to a 10 per cent drop in student enrolments as of June this year.
Appointed by State Higher Education and Skills Minister Peter Hall in April – after dismissing seven of the state’s 14 TAFE chairs – the opposition government quickly labelled Mr Mitchell’s tenure as part of a statewide creation of ‘pro-merger’ TAFE boards.
“I want to emphasise something here – GippsTAFE is not broke and it is not up for sale,” Mr Mitchell said.
“I can confidentially say the board is absolutely committed to pursuing this to improve the educational outcomes for this region.”
With Chisholm hosting eight campuses, mainly in Melbourne’s south eastern suburbs, including Dandenong, Berwick, and Frankston, Mr Mitchell said there was strategic overlap with GippsTAFE assets.
“There’s a lot of area where our assets overlap; they even have a campus in Wonthaggi, so there are obviously some real joint training opportunities we can look at there,” he said.
“But institutions like TAFE don’t just offer courses to people within our region – they can offer courses to people right across the country and outside of Australia, so that’s something we will also be considering.”
Mr Mitchell said a similar review exercise with Advance TAFE, which has major campuses in Sale and Bairnsdale, had recently come to a close.
However he said it was inappropriate to discuss outcomes as a number of proposals were still being workshopped.
“It’s the responsibility of every board to ensure their business is as sustainable as possible – (despite the GippsTAFE restructure) we are still not without our challenges – I would like to think within the next 12 months it will be clear about what our preferred business model is,” Mr Mitchell said.
“We are already collaborating with existing parties and already have existing partnership organisations like Chisholm, and my guess is those partnerships will continue in many forms.
“It is my belief the future belongs to the collaborators, it’s the most effective way of leveraging expertise and capabilities to ensure we can give the best offerings and educational outcomes.”
