Tuesday, 2 August 2022

Technical schools

Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (20:08): (2031) I wish to raise a matter for the attention of the Minister for Education in the other place, and it relates to the lack of availability of technical schools in Victoria. One of the many challenges Victoria and Australia face is a critical shortage of people in trade occupations, whether it is mechanical trades, building trades—across the suite of trade occupations. We for many years have not been attracting enough people into technical trades. We have seen the number of apprentices commencing and completing in Victoria plummet in recent years. In some fields or industries where people work in technical trades the workforce is ageing one year every year. As that population gets closer to retirement age we face a critical situation where large numbers of technical tradespeople in particular industries are going to retire and we are going to have an absolutely critical shortage in various technical trades areas. This is across the board—in aviation trades, automotive trades, building trades.

One of the big problems is the pipeline of young people to commence apprenticeships, and one of the problems that has been highlighted there by businesses who seek to recruit young people into apprenticeships is that they are unable to attract, firstly, young people with exposure and interest in technical trades, but they are also unable to attract people who have any basic skills to make them usable by an employer. Yes, employers want apprentices, to train them, but they also need people with some basic skills, and it has been raised with me on a number of occasions now that in some areas and some fields—automotive, aviation—in seeking to recruit apprentices, it is impossible to attract young people with the most basic technical skills. The ability to pump up a tyre was cited as an example. The ability to use a drill and the ability to use a hacksaw are skills which are lacking in people seeking apprenticeships. The reason for this is the lack of technical education at a state level. In the 1990s technical schools were abolished under the Kirner government. We no longer have a technical stream of education, and therefore there is no longer an opportunity for people who have a technical inclination to pursue technical education at a secondary level and make themselves employable at the apprenticeship level.

The action I seek is for the Minister for Education to revisit the way in which technical education is provided at a secondary level in Victoria. What we have now, with a couple of so-called tech schools, is not working. We do not have a pipeline of people who are interested in going into apprenticeships. We do not have a pipeline of people who have the basic skills to start an apprenticeship. This is now a critical issue for this state, and it needs to be fixed quickly.