TAFE Western & ACE Providers Working Together
TAFE Western signed Memorandums of Understanding with the Central West Community College, Western College and Robinson College in July 2008. Since that time the organisations have sought opportunities to cooperate through a number of initiatives.
Current activities include the Wellington Learning Community Project, a project in Broken Hill, a Remote Site Project in Condobolin and a Pathways Project.
The Wellington Learning Community Project was launched on Wednesday, 20th May 2009 at the Wellington Campus of TAFE Western. The Project was established to focus on targeted groups such as prisoners and young, unemployed citizens with the aim to establish a culture of participation in education and training in order to improve life and work skills.
Initiatives which have commenced as a result of the Wellington Learning Community include:
- a course for youth in Wellington to learn on-the-job construction and landscaping skills
- a course in clothing production which will provide basic skills in clothing production and address the need for locally produced school uniforms
- a course providing training to mature men which can help with future employment
- a course in retail skills, and
- a joint initiative between all members of the Wellington Learning Community which established a suspension school for young people on short and long-term school suspension.
The Broken Hill Project identified that there was a strong need for Enrolled Nurse Training in the area. As a result of the collaboration between TAFE Western and Robinson College, along with Broken Hill City Council and the Greater Western Area Health Service, an Enrolled Nurses course has been established in Broken Hill to enable more local people to undertake the training.
Other initiatives available in Broken Hill include a Community Garden Project. This project offers participants with training in the Certificate II and III in Horticulture and an opportunity to obtain a NSW Work Cover Construction Induction Certificate. A new hair and beauty training facility has also been established to fill the need for a local training facility for the hair, beauty and nail industry.
Another ACE-TAFE collaboration has resulted in a project of small groups of Aboriginal students in Condobolin participating in horticulture, waste management, cleaning operations and introductory mining courses. This program was the winner of the Industry Collaboration Award at the 2009 TAFE NSW Gili Awards.
The ACE-TAFE Western Region Project will continue to recognise, document, publicise and progress collaboration initiatives to ensure that students would be aware of learning pathways.
All these initiatives and many others in Western NSW have achieved the overall objective of the ACE-TAFE Western Region Project to improve education and training opportunities for people in the Western Region of NSW.
You can also see other video's about the ACE-TAFE Western Region Project by clicking on the links below:
TAFE Western and Robinson College