Page 36 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2019
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MR WALL (Brindabella) (11.31): The bill before us is very straightforward and mostly technical in nature, and the opposition will be supporting it. As the minister flagged in her presentation speech late last year, the Canberra Institute of Technology Amendment Bill 2018 reflects some of the findings from an external review undertaken in the 2016-17 financial year. This review focused on the governance arrangements at CIT and, amongst other things, identified that the skill set and the composition of the board membership needed some variation and revision.
The opposition supports this revision to the expertise and knowledge criteria for the board membership and understands the need to revise and clarify the role of the students and the staff representative appointments on the board. We see this revision in the skills criteria and the inclusion of some subject matter understanding as a good thing for board members. It will ensure an appropriate mix of skills present on the board to ensure a diverse membership and appropriate governance. This will also enable a stronger focus on developing industry partnerships and the networking capabilities with the corporate community and develop a further and greater connection to CIT in our local community.
In our view a smaller board reflects better corporate governance and leaves a more agile board able to react to the ever-changing landscape of the vocational education space. We agree also that changes proposed in this bill to now outdated language conventions—for example, the reference to “institute” being replaced with the reference to “CIT” and the replacement of the term “director” with “chief executive officer”—are straightforward, minor and technical but reflect a more modern and corporate view and, more importantly, the current practice within the CIT.
The Canberra Institute of Technology continues to be an important part of ACT’s educational landscape. It is important that we keep it current to ensure that it is best placed to serve the needs of a changing workforce and our economy. This bill goes some steps towards ensuring that outcome.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (11.33): The Greens are pleased to support this bill, which makes changes to the structure of the CIT board following the change from an advisory council to a board structure in 2015. A subsequent 2016-17 review of CIT’s governance arrangements has identified a small number of further changes which will enable the CIT board to operate in a more effective and responsive manner.
The Greens have long been proud supporters of CIT as a key part of our commitment to high quality and equitable education for all members of our community. We believe that quality, accessible vocational education and training, including through CIT, is crucial to Canberra’s future. We are committed to a publicly funded VET sector and we will safeguard CIT against any threat of privatisation, a threat we have seen from conservative governments across the country in recent years.
Rather than privatisation we need to continue to build a publicly funded VET sector that offers new skills and reskilling for future occupations. The VET sector will have a vital role to play in providing the training and upskilling we need for the 21st century, particularly in the areas of clean energy and climate change mitigation.
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