SA TAFE campuses see enrolment increases as students take up fee-free courses

A regional TAFE centre is seeing an upswell in enrolments as prospective students answer the call to solve the skills shortage in Australia. 

The initiative was started by the federal government to offer 180,000 fee-free courses for in-demand skills, ranging from aged care and architecture to childcare and hospitality. 

Riverland’s Kayleen Black is studying a Certificate III in Individual Support.

Ms Black said seeing the positive impact a support person has had for her auntie was one of the reasons she was drawn towards the course. 

“My oldest sister works in the field, so I’ve got a lot of feedback from her,” she said.

“And with my auntie being in a similar situation, what her needs are, the impact a support person can have made me want to get into it.”

Ahead of studying, Ms Black was worried that she wouldn’t be able to earn enough money to cover her living expenses but has found the fee-free initiative has given her the flexibility needed. 

“It just makes everyday living a lot easier to be able to do it and manage the day-to-day expenses at the same time,” she said. 

Murraylands, Riverland and Barossa TAFE regional manager Sarah Lance has been heartened by the response. 

“It has been fantastic. We’ve seen a significant increase in applications and we’ve managed to take more students into our Berri campus than we did last year,” she said. 

“The Riverland and other places in South Australia are becoming more and more tourist driven, and we’re seeing that reflected in industry demand.”

Enough lecturers to meet demand

While other TAFEs nationally have been struggling to keep up with student numbers, Ms Lance says her regional campuses are well positioned. 

“The really cool thing is that we already had local lecturers who were available for those courses and they will be taking the classes,” she said. 

One of those local lecturers whose course will be absorbing the increase in students is commercial cookery lecturer Gary Webb.

“I originally moved down to work at the Berri Hotel 21 years ago and I started doing a little bit of part-time teaching classes on top of that job,” he said.

“I ended up meeting a girl and the rest is history.” 

Mr Webb said cookery courses were usually in demand but the removal of the fee opened the opportunity for people to achieve higher levels of qualifications.

“Generally speaking, the cookery courses are moderately popular,” he said.

“Certificate II has been quite cheap in the past so we see a lot of people coming through and stopping there due to the price of certificate III.

 “So now people have heard about the opportunity we’ve just been inundated with people who have always wanted to finish off their cookery qualification.

“The price tag being removed was just enough to get them across the line.”