Only 40 print training places, 20 in prepress and 10 each in printing and finishing, will now receive any SA state government funding.
This is 90 per cent fewer than the five year average, and now only through Tafe SA, leaving print companies in the lurch.
According to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, an average of 396 students started government-subsidised print courses each year over the past five years, including 278 in 2014.
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The SA state government says subsidies for about 200 courses were scrapped because of low job prospects and completion rates, and says the money has been shifted to courses that offer graduates better employment prospects.
Tafe SA says students will continue to be serviced through current delivery program ‘and will be sufficient to meet industry needs’.
“The principles of WorkReady [the new program] are based on responding to employment demand rather than providing unlimited places with limited employment outcomes,” it says.
“Recent extensive consultation with industry about qualifications suggests that there is no anticipated reduction to current facilities or training provision for printing at Tafe SA.”
However, Print Training Australia principal consultant Andrew Reynolds says the Skills for All program used to cover about half of course costs and many employers will now not be able to afford it.
The training plans of two major print businesses have been thrown into disarray, including a big national outfit that planned to give all its staff consistent training across each state as part of a whole company upskilling program, and a major SA-only printer.
Reynolds says the printers, which are not named because negotiations are ongoing, are now considering their options and proceeding with a modified plan is now a long way off.
He says printing was cut with only six days’ notice, forcing a scramble that only secured half the expected enrolments at Print Training Australia, usually about 100, for this semester.
“If there is not enough training, skills will get lost and the industry will have a big shortage of qualified staff in the future with an ageing workforce,” Reynolds says.
“Everything we do now has to be employer pays. The big companies can sometimes make do with just the federal funding but it is very hard for smaller ones.
“We have already lost a lot of students and the lack of government assistance could potentially put us out of business.”
That Tafe SA is now the only institution getting any SA Government funding on many courses like print has drawn the ire of the Federal Government, as it breaches an agreement to ensure a diversity of training providers.
Training Minister Simon Birmingham says SA will not get the remaining $65m if it does not fix its system by the time the next payment is due in May-June 2016.
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