The largest contract yet to be signed between a Victorian TAFE and the Australian Defence Force has been clinched by Wodonga.
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From July Wodonga TAFE will take over the training for vehicle mechanics, engineers, electrical technicians, carpenters and others going through the Army School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.
Chief executive Mark Dixon said 100 trainers would be employed as a result of the five-year deal with revenue from the contract being reinvested locally.
“We don’t yet (know how many of those 100 will be new jobs) as up until the contract signing we’ve not had an opportunity to engage with the current workforce; we’ll start that straight away,” he said.
“It’s a substantial contract, as far as I’m aware the biggest Victorian TAFE contract with Defence ever.
“I’d rather not say the specific amount, but over five years it’s a substantial amount of money and it will see TAFE grow by about 23 or 24 per cent in size.”
Box Hill and Chisholm institutes have also been incorporated in the deal and will provide trainers.
The winning collaboration follows Wodonga TAFE’s successful tender in 2012 to provide nursing and paramedic training.
“We do a lot of work here, we do the forklift training for the Army and driver training down in Puckapunyal,” Mr Dixon said.
“This is really core to TAFE I think, those real technical trades like vehicle mechanic trades, the electronic and welding trades, the plumbers.
“All of the training will be done here on the barracks.
“We’ll pick the best TAFE teaches from across Victoria to bring in the really specialist capability.
“There’s been a really busy lead-up to the signing and the real work starts today.”
Brigadier Ben James said there had been 12 months of negotiations and work leading up to this point.
“All of our technical tradesmen and mechanics are trained here in Albury-Wodonga,” he said.
“The people that receive this training are absolutely central to maintaining high-end capability that enables us to deliver our war-fighting capability.”
Brigadier James said at any given time there were 800 members of the Defence Force training with the Army School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and on average 250 technicians graduated each year.
“If we are to sustain and maintain world-leading equipment … it’s really important our technicians and tradesmen can do their job and this partnership today means in the next five years the Wodonga Institute of Tafe will be central to delivering that training,” he said.
