THREE New England candidates pledged themselves as “defenders of higher education” at a public forum on Wednesday night.
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Organised by the NSW Teachers’ Federation and National Tertiary Education Union, more than 30 people attended the meeting to rally for the future of higher education in New England.
Greens’ Mercurius Goldstein and Independents Tony Windsor and Rob Taber took to the podium to deliver their promises for the future of post school education.
Mr Windsor kicked off the candidate discussions sharing a vision with the crowd of the stabilising public vocation in the district.
“TAFE gives people a degree of confidence, a lot of people enter the system thinking they can’t do much but it provides a pathway where as their skills developed so did their confidence and aspirations,” Mr Windsor said.
“If we look at the cost of the teachers, capital items and buildings, it doesn’t give us a true picture of the economic returns to the nation.”
Mr Goldstein declared the Greens policy for 80 per cent of funding being put into public vocational institutions.
“We need to restore TAFE to the pre-eminent place as the public provider of vocational education,” Mr Goldstein said. “We want to see social equity achieved through the university and TAFE sector working more in harmony.”
The candidates pledged to endorse a higher education policy for the protection, improvement and regulate the cost and autonomy of TAFE and universities.
Mr Taber discussed bridging the funding deficit for the research and development of renewable energy at the University of New England.
“I believe the TAFE system is one of the things that provides community stability and without that we could be in real trouble … it changed my life,” Mr Taber said.
“I believe we have to get it back because if we are going to get research and development in renewable energy, we have to strive for it and jump up and down until we get it.”
Questions and answers followed the talks, with residents putting their queries to the candidates about their future plans for the district’s education system.