CIT Woden is touted as the future of vocational education in Canberra but legacy issues continue to dog the training organisation. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Rumblings continue at the cash-strapped Canberra Institute of Technology over the hiring of corporate staff and the impact on its budget, courses and teaching capacity.
Region has obtained a letter from senior academic leaders intended for the new CEO Margot McNeill raising a host of issues and calling for reviews of CIT procurement policies and staff hiring.
“We are concerned that major budget pressures stem not from declining student numbers nor income, but from the decision to add 57 corporate roles without available funding,” the letter said.
“CIT now has the lowest teaching staffing ratio in the country (ABS – VET Workforce Study).”
The letter comes as CIT prepares to move into the new showcase campus at Woden in July. It was produced by the Head of Department network to highlight the precarious position of teaching teams but never sent.
The staff member who supplied the letter said it was common knowledge in teaching teams that CIT ran out of money to pay staff for the last few weeks of the financial year and had to ask the government for money.
“This was due to mismanagement and overspending on new executive staff,” they claimed.
“There is now talk that courses are going to be cut without consultation with local industry and teaching teams.”
They said the decision was not evidence-based nor made against any metrics, and could lead to shortages of new graduates for local industry in various areas, some of which may be on the ACT skills needs list.
CIT was attempting to reduce teaching staff to save money, the staff member said.
The letter asks if a cost-benefit analysis was conducted for the signings and calls for a review of the additional corporate positions and the structure of the executive team.
It said the hirings led to increased student fees, difficulty recruiting essential teaching staff, program cuts, less marketing and communication, falling enrolments and a decline in core compliance and quality delivery.
“Government appropriation should be used for quality training and keeping fees as low as possible to the community not for a massive increase of corporate non-academic positions,” the letter said.
In May, the ACT Government had to inject $5.3 million into CIT to keep it running.
CIT CEO Dr Margot McNeill at CIT Woden. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
The letter also claimed there was a lack of TAFE experience in the executive team, with only one of the 10 new members from the sector and only two of the team of 15 having TAFE experience.
This resulted in poor management of the online learning platform outage and significant increases in teaching workload, they said.
The letter claimed teaching teams were being blamed for procurement issues that the Integrity Commission sheeted home to the former CEO Leanne Cover.
“It is the view of this group that there was no need to add millions of corporate salaries to address the actions of one individual and/or potential procurement issues that could be addressed with training of existing teams,” it said.
It called on the CEO to review and revise CIT’s financial strategy, focusing on sustainable staffing models to ensure enhanced student experience and maintain TAFE and teaching
expertise.
The letter also called for a reassessment of recent changes to student fees and a review of non-teaching roles, executive structure and its recent rapid expansion.
It said there was a lack of transparent communication and consultation between executives and teachers.
“The current ‘If it is not recorded on a form it doesn’t exist’ – cannot continue and we need executives engaging with the academic areas to directly address and resolve issues,” the letter said.
The staff member who supplied the letter said morale was lower than it was in the period before Dr McNeill’s appointment.
CIT is still recovering from the contracts scandal instigated by former CEO Leanne Cover and aftermath of the COVID pandemic. Last year it ran a deficit of $21 million.
The staff member said the current executive was employed to fix the deficit but it had increased significantly.
In May, CIT axed its commercial training arm CIT Solutions so the organisation could focus on its core business. CIT said then it was also a result of the changing nature of demand for commercial training services in the Canberra region and rising costs.
CIT also rejected claims then that courses were being cut, students turned away and new teachers not being hired.
“Despite the after-effects of COVID-19 and a strong local employment market reducing the immediate demand for training, CIT continues to have strong enrolment numbers in many courses and remains committed to providing exceptional support to all students,” a spokesperson said.
