TAFE (II)

IN AUGUST THE LAST time I posted it was because I'd begun a Cert IV at TAFE in residential drafting. That's off: I've taken on a new and better job, so I sent my teachers as nice an email as I could to thank them, since I won't be continuing it.

Though they're not actually required to do so, since the RTO framework requires each unit to be assessed for competence (or not yet competence) the teachers grade everything we submitted to a university-like number scale. The last assignment I submitted I received 90/100. Well done me.

I've been hugely impressed by the state of the TAFE system, especially in contrast to what I'm aware of in the university sector. I mean, it has its problems, what sector doesn't. It's suffered the effects of the neoliberal post-1980s. But technical training has been one of the great achievements of Australian educational-industrial complex and it's worth appreciating that. I've come out of my brief encounter with a new sense of what education can be.