IT daws fewer students

The news is always a conversation.
This morning, the Herald Sun reports half as many VCE students have chosen IT compared to last year. As an Internet/IT proselyte, that is disappointing. I can't help feel these decisions are shaped by the government's Internet-phobic attitude in national advertising.

IT less attractive
There is no question IT has become a less-certain path professionally.
Since the dot-com bubble burst, job listings have become miniscule. HR departments are listing jobs requiring a laundry list of skills for much lower pay scales. (Some of the listings are comical: requirements for years of experience in technologies which have only existed for months, or a year or two.)
The media has given a lot of coverage to out-sourcing to India and Pakistan by large institutions and banks. It's a discouraging job market. No one seems to be reminding these banks and financial institutions that there are no privacy laws in those countries. Reports have reached Australia of CDs full of credit card and bank details being sold in open air markets!

TAFE enrolment drops
The same article reports "TAFE colleges are failing to meet the nneeds of the private sector and should be overhauled," according to Federal Vocational and Further Education Minister Andrew Robb. -- It's bloody well about time, Mr Robb.
TAFE enrollments dropped 13% between 2001 and 2006.

Australia's institutionalized vocational training has been centered in the TAFE (Technical and Further Education) system. The system was a good idea initially. A fast-track public-private partnering to produce the skills Australia desperately needed. But the TAFE system has become bureaucratic, unweildy, and political -- incorporating the worst of Australia's mateship and corruption.

TAFEs take on the affects of colleges and universities. The names chosen for these for-profit businesses are at best deceptive. There may have been the intention to encourage entrepreneurship originally, but by putting 70-85% (depending on source) of government funding into the TAFE system as opposed to spreading the funds around for small, better-focused organizations, the TAFEs have become as much a hinderance to flexible learning as examples.
Because large TAFEs are publicly well-funded yet remain private businesses, these institutions become competitors in the open market with an inordinate advantage.
Projects which would be funded on their merits privately are subsidized by using (not employing, using) students. Instead of paying for skills on the open market, the TAFE lets the government and the students pay for the right to develop entrepreneurial projects.
The result quashes new ideas and entrepreneurship, especially for Internet entrepreneurs.

TAFE means business
Public funding 'initiatives' are formed based on the submissions from TAFEs to suit the TAFEs. TAFE executives and employees sit on the decision-making boards, and direct the funds from private initiative to the TAFEs. (e.g., WiMax technology is planned to provide broadband speeds for regional Australia in 2008.)
Business entitites are formed specifically to take advantage of this public trough feed.


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