TAFE NSW was told to find $90 million worth of assets it could sell, in a privatisation by stealth plan cooked up by the Berejiklian Government.
The Community and Public Sector Union NSW, which represents all non-teaching staff, said media reports of privatisation targets confirmed the union's fears the NSW Government ultimately wanted to sell off the vocational trainer.
"The Berejiklian government needs to come clean about its sale plans for TAFE NSW because the selling off of campuses and sacking staff looks like privatisation by stealth," said Troy Wright, assistant secretary of CPSU NSW.
"It's straight out of the privatisation playbook - under resource the system and then sell it off claiming the private market will do a better job. TAFE NSW should never be privatised."
The privatisation goals as revealed by The Sydney Morning Herald come after the March sale of the Scone campus to Racing NSW, who plan to continue to use the state-of-the-art equestrian facility for training.
"The sale of the Scone campus was incredibly short sighted. The Hunter region has a youth unemployment rate of 18% but rather than investing in training opportunities the government sold off campuses and cut jobs.
"Now Racing NSW is taking on a significant portion of training for those who want to work in the industry. Standards are at risk because the motivation will be getting students through the doors, not necessarily equipping them with the best skills for jobs in the future.
"We need the highest training and skills standards to be set and taught by our vocational trainer. Who would you want fixing the plumbing or wiring in your house, cutting your hair, or managing your food? Someone trained by a shonky, private facility churning through students, or someone who went to a world-class vocational trainer which sets the industry standards like TAFE NSW?"
Mr Wright said the deliberate erosion of TAFE NSW was felt particularly in the regions.
"What do the people of NSW get from this gutting of critical training infrastructure? Fewer jobs and a hobbled education system. In the middle of the worst economic downturn that the state has seen in a generation the Berejiklian government is closing pathways to prosperity."
The Berejiklian government is also slashing nearly 700 frontline TAFE NSW jobs, leaving campuses across the state unworkable and creating the conditions for a privatisation fire sale.
"Gladys Berejiklian and Dominic Perrottet are deliberately dismantling TAFE NSW to ready it for sale.
"They're helpfully trimming it down for future corporate buyers to come in and snap it up in another NSW assets fire sale."
