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Changes strain local learning networks

Drastic funding cuts to Gippsland’s Local Learning and Employment Networks will substantially erode their ability to provide services to assist the region’s students in the transition from school to work.

By Kevin Balshaw - 1st October 2009 - Back to News

Drastic funding cuts to Gippsland’s Local Learning and Employment Networks (LLENs) will substantially erode their ability to provide services to assist the region’s students in the transition from school to work, the Member for Eastern Victoria, Philip Davis, said today.

Mr Davis said large reductions in funding for the three Gippsland networks – Gippsland East, Baw Baw-Latrobe and South Gippsland – from the start of 2010 would force them to cut staff numbers by a third, restrict the scope of their services and economise on operating costs.

This would potentially leave local students in the 15–19 age group with dramatically less access to work transition support, and their workload will effectively double due to an extended student age range they will have to serve.

The overall Commonwealth and State budget for the Gippsland networks and the five complementary Local Community Partnership programs in the region has been reduced from $1.5 million to just over $1 million a year. Staff numbers across the region will have to be cut from 18 to 12.

Mr Davis said the Gippsland East LLEN, based in Bairnsdale and serving the area from Yarram to Mallacoota, would be hit hardest of the three networks in the region.

"Gippsland East will lose its Commonwealth-funded Local Community Partnership program contract and its funding to provide work transition services to students in the area will be slashed by $230,000 to $347,000 a year for the next four-year cycle," Mr Davis said.

"Baw Baw Latrobe network will lose $120,000 in funding and South Gippsland $110,000.

"The LLEN funding is also not being indexed, which will impose additional strain on resources over time.

"Four staff at Bairnsdale are about to lose their jobs, leaving the network with an executive officer, administrative officer, a researcher and only one partnership broker to work with schools and businesses across approximately half the region east of Melbourne.

"It is also faced with having to move from its present office in Bairnsdale’s Main Street into a shared office arrangement and getting rid of two of its three vehicles, which will curtail its direct work with students and its role to liaise between schools and local employers.

"Without additional funding, the network will have to scrap a key program that has trained more than 100 adult mentors over the past five years to work with schools and students and other organisations.

"It will also have to abandon a program called Inspiring Young People, which has been conducted in all East Gippsland schools in association with the Smith Family welfare organisation."

Mr Davis said the service coverage of the LLENs would more than double as a result of a decision to expand the age range the LLEN program serves from the 15–19 group down to the age of 10.

"Up to date the program has dealt with students in their late secondary school years and first-year tertiary students, but now it will have to incorporate every primary school," he said.

Mr Davis said while the changes to the scope of the school-to-work services provided under the LLEN and Local Community Partnership programs would reduce overlap and create a better focused service for students, the offsetting reduction in funding and consequent restriction on their activities programs and field work presented a major concern.

The main focus of the LLEN groups under the new arrangement would be on strategic planning and brokering training programs between schools and business and industry.

Until the change, the Victorian Government funded the LLENs and the Commonwealth funded Local Community Partnership programs, but now the Commonwealth is the sole source of funding.

Mr Davis said a major concern was that to date Victoria had allocated only part of the lump sum it had received from the Commonwealth, and was withholding an amount of $4 million.

"This raises questions as to what the Government will spend this money on, and when," he said. "In the absence of any announcement, it is open to the inference that the state may be holding onto the $4 million until next year when it will introduce new programs as an election sweetener."

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: kevin.balshaw@parliament.vic.gov.au



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