In a letter sent to Senator the Hon Simon Birmingham Minister for Education and Training, AICSA has asked for re-consideration of the availability of Fee-Help to Creative Arts courses.
The proposed Federal Government changes to fee paying courses include the scrapping of VET fees available to students undertaking Creative Arts courses. The scrapping of these fees in South Australia will have an extremely negative impact on students studying arts courses. In line with current TAFE SA practices, AICSA support implementing a number of capped fee places.
TAFE SA has already implemented a capping process for the numbers of students in some creative arts courses. This means that for both government and for industry, the numbers of students studying VET courses are known, manageable and sustained. The reason why capping can work in the creative sector is that students who study these courses are auditioned or interviewed for talent and ability, thus ensuring the best are chosen. This results in small numbers of highly deserving individuals – with no access or equality issues based on their ability to pay. AICSA believe it is the best use of tax-payers money and returns the greatest result back to industry.
AICSA has requested from the Minister that the following courses delivered through TAFE SA remain in the VET scheme with a quota of capped number of VET Fees:
Writing
Visual Arts
Dance
Acting
Technical Production & Design
Film & TV
Arts Administration
Download the letter here.