Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Ministers statements: vocational education and training

Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (12:28): This week is National Skills Week. National Skills Week is a celebration of what TAFE and vocational training help people to achieve. This week, like every week, we are delivering the skills Victorians need for great careers. The TAFE network, the Victorian Skills Authority and our next generation of plumbers launched National Skills Week yesterday, alongside the great member for Southern Metropolitan John Berger and the member for Ashwood Matt Fregon at Holmesglen TAFE’s Chadstone campus – future plumbers like apprentice Chloe, who has gone from cert II preapprenticeship and is now starting the third year of her full apprenticeship. We have added seven new plumbing skill sets to the free TAFE list to make it easier for qualified plumbers to get a cert III and get on the tools without cutting corners. From January to June this year there were almost 350 commencements in these short courses, taking the opportunity to get the specific skills they need for their licences without needing to do the full qualification, and they are doing it with free tuition.

Last week I was in Castlemaine with the fantastic member for Bendigo West Maree Edwards to open the Bendigo TAFE and Dhelkaya Health learning hub. This $4 million hub will train TAFE students in courses like allied health, nursing and aged care right in their local community. We met Elizabeth, who was inspired to enrol when she was visiting parents at the hospital and saw the construction of the learning hub underway. Be like Chloe, be like Elizabeth, and enrol in a TAFE course today for a great career tomorrow.