Sydney Technical College

Sydney Technical College

The Sydney Technical College was established in the final decades of the nineteenth century, an era of great optimism, industrial development and urbanisation. Sydney's population was growing fast and a thriving industrial precinct was developing around Pyrmont, Balmain and Darling Harbour. The advent of new materials and technologies – steam power, iron, steel, electricity – hastened the expansion of the New South Wales economy from its earlier pastoral base, to include fast-growing secondary and commercial industries. Technology was the harbinger of modernity and prosperity, and technical skills were needed to meet the challenges of the industrial age.

The College started in 1878 as an adjunct to the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts but was soon taken over by the colonial government. After making do in rented premises scattered all around town, the College moved to its grand new purpose-built headquarters in Ultimo in 1891. Until 1959, when the directors of technical education moved to new headquarters in the city, the College in Ultimo was the controlling centre for the entire system of technical education in New South Wales, the 'hub around which the system turned'. [1]

Over a century of sweeping social and technological change, the Sydney Technical College strove to meet the training needs of each generation. After World War I, returned servicemen were trained as signwriters, coopers, piano-makers and office workers. Through the Great Depression, the College came alive during daylight hours with unemployed people studying commercial subjects and trades. During World War II, the College operated around the clock as a combined teaching facility, factory and RAAF camp under the Commonwealth Defence Training Scheme. Through the 1970s and 1980s the College ran special programs to equalise employment and training opportunities for disadvantaged social groups. Thousands of apprentices trained at the Sydney Technical College, and even more students undertook non-trade courses. Students who completed diplomas became Associates of the Sydney Technical College, and through the twentieth century the ASTC designation came to be highly regarded in many professions, particularly science, architecture and engineering.

From the original 1891 buildings facing Mary Ann Street, the Sydney Technical College grew to become the largest single educational institution in New South Wales, [2] occupying several Ultimo blocks and annexes spread throughout Sydney. Out of the Sydney Technical College grew the University of New South Wales, UTS and the National Art School. In 1992 following the creation of the NSW TAFE Commission, the Sydney Technical College lost its historic name; it was rebadged the Sydney Institute of Technology. In 2000, Ultimo College was made one of seven campuses constituting TAFE NSW's Sydney Institute. [3]

Technical education gets underway in Sydney

The Sydney Technical College grew out of the Technical and Working Men's College established by the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, the Engineering Association of New South Wales Trades, and the Trades and Labor Council of New South Wales in 1878. The Technical and Working Men's College was an independent community-based institution rather than a government initiative, although it did receive a government subsidy. It is significant that the colonial government did not lead the way in establishing a system of technical education. Industrialists – engineers, builders, architects, manufacturers, surveyors – best understood the need for skilled labour in the colony, and they led the charge. The government at the time was mostly concerned with primary education – literacy and numeracy – rather than technical training, especially after the Public Instruction Act of 1880 made schooling compulsory for the first time. Indeed, school education remained the clear priority in the government's education program until the establishment of the Department of Technical Education in 1949. [4]

But the need for technical training was acute. The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of rapid economic growth in the colony, and Sydney was undergoing industrial development. The population in the colony increased ten-fold, some 20,000 kilometres of railway were laid, and local industry, especially engineering, was developing apace. There was also a growing concern that the British Empire was falling behind the United States and continental Europe in industrial efficiency. [5]

Mechanical drawing was seen to be the basis of good design, and important in improving industrial output. In 1865, Norman Selfe, a young engineer and draughtsman with considerable industry experience, started giving classes in mechanical drawing at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts. [6] These classes are frequently cited as being the birth of technical education in New South Wales, although there had been some industrial training provided in orphan schools and female schools of industry from the 1830s. [7] The popularity of Selfe's classes, and other practical classes that followed at the School of Arts, reflected the changing socio-economic fabric of the colony, and the urgent need amongst tradesmen and artisans for new skills. [8]

The establishment of the Engineering Association of New South Wales and the New South Wales Trades and Labor Council in the 1870s provided further indices of the growth in local industry. [9] These organisations cooperated with the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts to form the Technical and Working Men's College in 1878. People quickly started referring to it as the Sydney Technical College, and it was an immediate success. By 1881 over 1,000 students were enrolled in more than 50 courses. As well as offering technical courses like Mechanical Drawing, Applied Mathematics and Steam Engines, and Simple Surgery, the College ran non-technical courses such as Freehand Drawing, English Grammar and Reading, and Natural Philosophy. [10]

To use the terms embodied in the modern acronym 'TAFE', the proportion of 'technical' to 'further education' subjects on offer at the College, and later throughout the system, has continued to wax and wane, in response to changing ideas about the role of the technical education sector. Should the system just serve the needs of industry and the labour market? Or should it also provide arts and personal enrichment courses, and an equality of access to educational opportunities? The debates and adjustments continue to this day.

The early curriculum of the Sydney Technical College reflected its evolution out of the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts which aimed to teach working people about the scientific principles underlying their trades, [11] but which in reality tended to cater to the respectable middle and upper classes of the colony with lectures in art, philosophy and science. [12] There was a real demand for these general education courses, and they continued to thrive after the establishment of the College, alongside the newer technical subjects. The motto of the College was 'manu et mente' or 'hand and mind'.[13]

Government takes over technical education

Classes at the early College were popular but the course fees did not cover costs. This meant an increasing need for subsidies from the colonial government. In 1883, with a growing appreciation of the importance of technical education, the government assumed full financial responsibility for the College. A Board of Technical Education was appointed to take over the administration of the College from the School of Arts, and to organise

a state system of technical education for the improvement of the industrial youth of the country of all classes in those branches of practical knowledge which relate to their callings in life. [14]

The Board of Technical Education expected a high degree of autonomy from the government, and some of its industrialist members were openly dismissive of the 'bookish' curricula of existing educational institutions. The relationship between the Board and the Department of Public Instruction, to which it answered, became increasingly strained. [15] In 1889 the government dissolved the Board, transferring its responsibilities to the newly formed Technical Education Branch of the Department of Public Instruction.

This outcome had been vehemently opposed by some members of the Board, including its last acting president, the engineer Norman Selfe, who believed technical education should be administered by people with practical industry experience, not the bureaucrats and 'schoolmasters' who ran the Department. [16] He saw the infant Sydney Technical College as the seed of a future Technical University, equal in status to the University of Sydney.[17] At the time, his ideas were laughed out of town, but in 1949 both of his visions were realised, with the passage of the Technical Education and NSW University of Technology Act, which saw the establishment of a separate Department of Technical Education and a new technological university, from 1955 known as the University of New South Wales.

Accommodation for the College

The final task for the Board of Technical Education in 1889 was to find a suitable site for a permanent home for the Sydney Technical College. From 1883 the Board had urged the purchase of a 3.5 acre (1.5 hectare) portion of John Harris's subdivided Ultimo estate. The Minister, Joseph Carruthers, believed students would be unwilling to travel to what seemed to him to be a remote location. Other sites were considered, including the block adjacent to the Australian Museum and Sydney Grammar School. But Norman Selfe convinced Carruthers that Ultimo was perfectly situated for the purpose, as Selfe recounted later:

It was … arranged that in conjunction with Mr James Barnet and the writer, that the Minister would visit the Ultimo site. The morning selected turned out fine and clear and the writer, acting as pilot, first took his companions to the top of Messrs Hordern's tall building at the Haymarket for a preliminary outlook, whence the suburbs of Pyrmont, Balmain, Glebe, Redfern, etc, and even Leichhardt and Petersham appeared quite close at hand, while Ultimo House apparently lay right under foot. Mr Carruthers, like many others, had not realised that the Ultimo site was so close to the Haymarket and George Street, and when he had walked to the spot, he admitted at once its central character and grand superiority to all the other sites that had been proposed for a College. [18]

The site was purchased, and in March 1891, with building work continuing all around, the first classes began at Ultimo. [19]

The Ultimo site was meant to [media]house not only the Sydney Technical College, but also a Technological Museum and two high schools. The government architect William Kemp designed the original buildings, which were completed between 1891 and 1893 on Mary Ann Street, Ultimo. They remain in use to this day as part of the Sydney Institute of TAFE's Ultimo College. The other original structures built on the site to house laboratories, machines and workshops have long since been demolished.

The main College building was designed in the Romanesque Revival style, featuring carvings of Australian animals and flowers, a vaulted ceiling on the top floor and several stained glass windows. It is flanked by two smaller Queen Anne style buildings, with painted glass windows in the stairwells showing representations of the arts and trades. [20] These two buildings were meant to house Sydney Girls' High School and Sydney Boys' High School. But the girls' headmistress protested that Ultimo's bad reputation made it an undesirable location, so the Girls' High School stayed put on Elizabeth Street until 1921. Sydney Boys' High School by contrast did make the move from the city to Ultimo in 1892, and remained there until 1928. [21] Meanwhile, the grand three-storey Romanesque Revival building completed in 1893 on the corner of Harris and Mary Ann streets represented a splendid step up in the world for the Technological Museum, whose collection had been housed in what its curator referred to as a 'wretched tin shed' in the Domain since the Garden Palace fire of 1882. [22]

From these original buildings, the Sydney Technical College expanded to occupy several Ultimo blocks and annexes spread throughout Sydney. In 1910 the College doubled its footprint, taking over the rest of the original block as far as Thomas Street. This included what was allegedly the oldest house in Sydney, Ultimo House, by this time in very poor condition. Ultimo House was repurposed for use by the College, but gradually got crowded out as College buildings multiplied around it. It was finally demolished in 1933 to make way for the new Electrical Engineering building designed by former College student Edward Rembert. [23]

In 1911 an extra storey and a new facade were added to the original Mary Ann Street building on the Harris Street side of the main building. A large auditorium now occupied most of the top floor, named Turner Hall after the then Superintendent of Technical Education. But the College's chronic shortage of space meant that in 1917 the grand space was partitioned into separate rooms as temporary accommodation for the Department of Electrical Engineering. Similarly, in the late 1950s, the space was converted into rooms for hairdressing classes. Turner Hall was restored to its former glory in 1990, when it became once again the centre of the College's ceremonial, cultural and social activities. [24]

By 1940 the College occupied most of the land bounded by Broadway and Wattle, Mary Ann and Harris streets in Ultimo, as well as several annexes. From 1906 to 1939 the College used an old boot-making factory opposite the railway station in Erskineville as a factory school, selling boots to government departments to help meet expenses. In 1909 the College opened its School of Leather Dressing and Tanning in a former morgue near Circular Quay, using machinery and equipment supplied by companies in the tanning districts of Botany and Willoughby. This operation moved to Waterloo in 1917, where it remained as an annexe to the College until 1999. [25] In 1921 the Technical Education Branch purchased the old Darlinghurst Gaol, which operated as an annexe of the Sydney Technical College until it achieved independence as the East Sydney Technical College in 1955. In 1937 Motor Construction classes moved to a converted meat market in Quarry Street, Pyrmont. This was arguably the worst accommodation ever used by the College, and the arrangement was in place for over 20 years. These are just a few of the annexes used by the Sydney Technical College before it started to shrink in area in the 1970s. [26]

Student life

For its first half-century the Ultimo campus was always busier at night than during the day, as most students were apprentices who had to complete the College component of their training outside working hours, or part-time students doing non-trade courses in their own time. For this reason, and because space was always an issue at Ultimo, facilities for recreation and student amenity were slow to emerge at the College. This was in marked contrast to the University of Sydney where students enjoyed large open spaces for relaxation between classes. [27]

So cramped were conditions in the early days at the Sydney Technical College that students would eat meals by candlelight in the cellars of Ultimo House. [28] In 1927 the first College cafeteria opened in rooms behind Turner Hall, and a gatehouse was constructed at the Harris Street entrance to give students a safer exit at night, and to monitor night visitors. [29] The gatehouse was demolished in 1972 to make way for the 11-storey, windowless, asbestos-laden RE Dunbar building on the corner of Thomas and Harris streets, which itself was replaced in the early 2000s.

It took until the 1950s for the Department of Technical Education to pay attention to the question of recreational spaces for the students at the College. Rules around apprenticeships were changing so that more and more apprentices were completing some of their College studies during working hours. The increasing number of day students led to the erection of two small buildings for recreational activities, a grassed area for sport and recreation on the Broadway block (now part of UTS), and the appointment of the first Student Amenities Officer who organised sporting competitions, social functions and accommodation for overseas students. [30]

Interestingly, in the 1960s and 1970s, the tide of student activism that swept across the universities touched the Sydney Technical College very lightly. As historian Norm Neill points out, 'part-time students had little time to spare for political activities'. [31]

Women at the Tech

There were never any official restrictions on women taking part in any classes or courses at the College, even in the earliest days when it was run by the School of Arts. Early calendars and reports from the Sydney Technical College show that women were always part of the life of Sydney Technical College as instructors, examiners and students. For example, in 1885 Miss Hull was awarded a prize in Practical Geometry, Mrs A Fawcett-Story was Instructress in Domestic Economy, and Mrs Edgeworth David was appointed examiner in Cookery for 1886. [32] However, rigid gender role expectations and the requirement that trade students be employed in a related industry, tended to restrict women to non-trade courses in the Departments of Art, Domestic Science, and Women's Handicrafts.

There were some exceptions. At least four women became Associates of the Sydney Technical College having completed diplomas (the highest level courses) in the 1920s: three in Chemistry [33] and one in Electrical Engineering. [34] This is how Australia's first female electrical engineer and amateur radio operator, Florence Violet McKenzie (nee Wallace), described her experience as the only woman in her class at Sydney Technical College in the years following the First World War:

The first night we had soldering there ... one of the boys sidled up to me and said, 'I'll help you with yours.' I said, 'I'll be all right thanks, I think I can manage this.' Of course I found it easy because I'd been doing a lot ... radio work and with that, you have an awful lot of soldering to do. So [the men] were always helpful and they were always nice. I always took great pains to let them think I thought how wonderful they were. So they were really, they were awfully good about it ... I was just like one of them, they made no difference. [35]

Meanwhile, Mary Ellen Roberts, as Lecturer-in-charge of the Department of Women's Handicrafts from 1908 until her death in 1924, did much to raise the status and resist the trivialisation of so-called 'women's courses' at the College. Her department strove to prepare women for vocations as wage earners as well as housewives, since as she argued, 'in this State about 30 per cent of the adult women work for wages outside their own homes' in professional, commercial, industrial, and agricultural and domestic pursuits. [36] She founded the Technical College Vocations Club, open to Women's Handicrafts students and ex-students, and served on the Council of Studies and on the editorial committee of the Technical Gazette for many years. [37]

In 1917 the Departments of Art, Domestic Science and Women's Handicrafts were moved off the Ultimo campus, coming to rest in 1922 in the newly acquired East Sydney annexe. This removed most women from the Ultimo campus, as Norm Neill observed:

This was not a deliberate attack on women's rights – essentially male departments such as Baking and Sheep and Wool moved as well – and East Sydney was officially an annexe of Sydney, not a separate college. Nonetheless, women were virtually excluded from the centre of the technical education system, and the Ultimo campus became an essentially male territory for several years. [38]

A big development in the 1930s was the creation of the Commercial Department in the old Boys' High School building on Mary Ann Street. Both men and women attended, but for women there was a focus on Typing and Shorthand, for men, Bookkeeping and Accountancy. [39]

More women came to Ultimo during World War II as 'dilutees'. With an acute need for munitions operatives, local committees gave permission for many skilled positions to be 'diluted'. This meant that tasks usually done by a qualified tradesman could be done by people trained just in a specific task, for example making a gun part, without having the full range of a turner-machinist's skills. 'Dilutees' were often women. They earned less than tradesmen's wages and knew they'd be replaced by returning skilled workers at end of the war. [40]

In 1981 the first Coordinator of Women's Programs was appointed. In 1982 the Women's Coordination Unit was established, responsible for programs such as the New Opportunities for Women (NOW) course for women re-entering the workforce and Introduction to Trades (INTO) courses. But this was short-lived: in 1988 all programs conducted by the Women's Coordination Unit were mainstreamed, and nearly all positions in the unit were abolished. [41]

TAFE NSW now claims that the gender split is 'more or less 50/50'; [42] further research would discover the proportion of male and female students at Ultimo College in the distinct skill units.

Wartime and depression

From 1916, the College was inundated with returned servicemen training under the Repatriation Vocational Training Scheme. By 1922 some 6,000 ex-servicemen had earned new qualifications in New South Wales, some doing degrees at the University, but most training at technical colleges in various trades such as building, automotive mechanics, coopering, piano-making, bicycle construction, tailoring and office work. [43] The scheme was national, with the States providing the training and the Commonwealth providing the funds. To cope with the numbers in Sydney, Repatriation Trades Schools were established as annexes of the College in Chippendale, Dawes Point, Randwick, Alfred Park, York Street in the city and near Central Railway Station. Trainees studied full time until they were 40 per cent proficient, then entered the workforce with their wages subsidised by the government until they reached full proficiency. Norm Neill suggests the scheme was far more successful than the parallel plan to settle returned servicemen on the land as farmers. [44]

During the Depression of the 1930s, Sydney Technical College offered educational assistance to the unemployed. Under the Prevention and Relief of Unemployment Act, the New South Wales Department of Labour and Industry funded special daytime trade classes for dismissed and new apprentices, and a new Day Commercial school opened in the old Boys' High School building at Ultimo for school leavers not wanting to follow technical occupations. [45] Given that Ultimo was a hotbed of gambling during the Depression it was no doubt a struggle of will for some students to opt each day for the College instead of one of the many local pubs. [46]

During World War II, Sydney Technical College operated around the clock in three shifts. About 37,000 service personnel and civilians were trained under the Commonwealth Defence Training Scheme, and Sydney Technical College was by far the biggest training centre. During this time, normal trade classes operated as usual, mainly between 5.30 pm and 9.30 pm. Defence Training Scheme night classes ran from 10 pm to 6 am, followed by day classes from 7.30 am to 5 pm. An old factory on the Broadway block was converted into barracks for the Royal Australian Air Force trainees. Other service trainees were housed elsewhere and brought into Ultimo by truck or tram. There was some small-scale military manufacturing at the College to assist the war effort. [47]

For Ultimo residents at the time, it must have felt as if the area was under military occupation. United States Army forces were encamped down the hill at Wentworth Park. Troops and war equipment were embarked at the Pyrmont cargo wharves. [48] Notorious underworld figure Chow Hayes lived on Thomas Street during the war years when the area was an army camp. He later recalled

The army blokes were all living in tents. There were only seven terraces on our block, plus a couple of factories up the road. Their workers had to carry a special white ticket… to pass through the sentry points. And my wife and kids, and our neighbours, all had to carry pink tickets to pass through to the houses. [49]

But there were advantages to being a neighbour of the Tech:

We had Dairy Farmers on one corner of Harris Street and Thomas Street, and the Tech on the other corner. They held cooking classes there, and any leftover meat and cakes were given to the locals … My wife could also walk into the Tech on a Thursday and have her hair done for nothing by the students in the hairdressing classes … [50]

Reconstruction after the war was also an intensely busy time for the College. From 1944 returned servicemen and women studied in universities and technical colleges under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. Many enrolled in courses relating to the building trades, to meet the desperate need for skilled labour in the postwar development boom. Some courses available to veterans, such as art, were not strictly vocational, but were also a popular choice. The scheme peaked in the late 1940s, winding down from early 1950s. The last few trainees completed courses in 1958. By time it ended, the scheme had trained more than 26,000 ex-service personnel in New South Wales. [51]

Apprenticeships

The original College, when it was run by the School of Arts, offered technical, vocationally oriented classes, but not the training of apprentices. [52] Even after the move to Ultimo, there were no entry requirements – classes and courses were open to anyone who wanted to enrol. After a series of reforms in 1913–15, the training of apprentices in trade courses became the core business of the College. Conditions of entry were applied, and only those working in related industries were permitted to enrol in trade and diploma courses. So-called 'dilettante students' were dismissed, although they could take part in non-trade courses at the College, such as women's handicrafts, art and domestic science. [53]

Through the 1920s, the number of industrial awards requiring apprentices to study at trades schools or technical colleges grew, following an inquiry into apprenticeship by the Board of Trade. Most apprentices had to be 'at tech' three nights per week, as few employers allowed any time off work for study during daylight hours. [54]

In 1944 the Industrial Arbitration Act was amended to introduce compulsory daytime attendance at college for eight hours per fortnight, reducing evening attendance for most apprentices to one evening per week. [55] The College became a busier place during the daytime in this period, particularly with all the CRTS trainees. The Act was amended again in 1959 so that all apprentices' technical college training took place in daylight hours. This freed up college facilities after 5 pm, enabling the Department of Technical Education to develop new courses and raising the idea of a wider role for the technical colleges. This led to a reform process culminating in the establishment in 1975 of the Department of Technical and Further Education. [56]

Diplomas

As well as training apprentices and providing non-trade courses, the Sydney Technical College ran five-year trade-related diploma courses in many branches of science, engineering and architecture. Students who completed diploma courses became Associates of the Sydney Technical College, and the ASTC designation came to be highly regarded in many professions. By 1929 the College offered 18 diploma courses. Electrical Engineering was the most popular, followed by Architecture and then Mechanical Engineering. [57] The diploma courses were a source of pride for the College, representing an ideal which held technical skills to be as important and prestigious as academic achievements. [58] But they were taken over by the new universities.

In 1951 the Department of Technical Education permitted the newly established New South Wales University of Technology (later the University of New South Wales) to conduct the technical college diploma courses in the same fields as university degree courses. They were still conducted at the College but under university patronage. Then in 1954 the university introduced its first part-time degree courses – these mostly replaced the related diploma courses. In 1955 the first university students moved to the new site at Kensington. By 1959 the College offered just two diploma courses – in Management and Public Administration. [59]

The removal of most of the diploma courses left a gap in College curriculum but also provided an opportunity to meet other educational needs. Surveys identified a need for training at the technician level, so new 'certificate courses' were developed from 1955. By 1959, 25 such courses were on offer at Ultimo, in areas such as biology, chemistry, dental care, electronics and communications.[60] The aim was to train personnel 'at that level of industry where knowledge of general principle begins to assume more importance than hand or machine skills'. [61]

By the mid-1960s, the University of New South Wales conducted most of the diploma courses leading to the award of ASTC. Most were becoming more academic, so a new demand developed from certain industries for more practical old-style technical college diplomas. The Department introduced two in science and architecture in 1964. But these were not to be conducted at the Sydney Technical College. The New South Wales Institute of Technology was created to take responsibility for the new diploma courses from January 1965. [62]

The New South Wales Institute of Technology

Originally the Institute was an extension of the Sydney Technical College. Construction of a 27-storey tower to house the Institute on the College's Broadway frontage took 12 years to complete. In the meantime the Institute made use of existing College buildings. In 1970 the Institute became a College of Advanced Education, which effectively ended its relationship with the Sydney Technical College. As Norm Neill noted,

Once again, the College lost virtually all its high-level technological courses to a new institution it had helped develop. [63]

From the 1970s the footprint of the Sydney Technical College shrank considerably, as it ceded space to the now-separate Institute of Technology, which in 1988 achieved university status and became the University of Technology, Sydney.

In the 1970s the Sydney Technical College was still by far the largest technical college in the State, but its role within the system of technical education had shrunk. In the words of Norm Neill: 'it was no longer the hub of the system. It had become one of many colleges.' [64]

Technical education meets social justice

Meanwhile, technical education was going national. Gough Whitlam's federal Labor government, elected in 1972, took an unprecedented interest in education, appointing the Australian Committee on Technical and Further Education in 1973. Its report, known as the Kangan Report, completely redefined technical education. It recommended that the concept of technical education should be broadened to include 'adult education', that its main purpose should be the 'betterment and development of individual people and their contribution to the good of the community', and that adults should have unrestricted access to this education. [65] It also recommended raising the level of Commonwealth funding dramatically, allowing the abolition of course fees, the introduction of means-tested grants for students, and improvements to college facilities. [66]

In New South Wales the Department of Technical Education was replaced by the Department of Technical and Further Education in 1975. In line with the principles embodied in the Kangan Report, industry's training needs no longer restricted the curriculum: vocational training was still important, but TAFE colleges now offered continuing and second chance education as well. Along with new non-vocational and hobby courses, special programs and units were developed to help specific groups overcome difficulties such as poor literacy or numeracy, disability, poor English or lack of previous educational opportunities. [67] Student assistance schemes and the abolition of fees allowed new socio-economic groups to participate in TAFE, changing the student profile at TAFE colleges. Enrolments increased dramatically. [68]

From Sydney Technical College to Ultimo College

In 1988 the Liberal/National Party coalition came to power in New South Wales, and the new Minister for Education, Terry Metherell, planned a restructure of the entire education portfolio, including TAFE. This restructure, implemented in 1991, reversed many of the policies which had underpinned TAFE since the Kangan Report in 1974. Vocational training was the top priority once more. Special programs were mainstreamed into the normal curriculum as part of a drive for structural efficiency. Administrative fees for courses were introduced, which immediately reduced the number of enrolments at Sydney Technical College by 15 per cent. [69]

Another consequence of the review was the abolition of the centralised TAFE system. The Department of TAFE was redesignated as a Commission with authority decentralised to 24 'networks'. Because of its size, Sydney Technical College became a network in its own right. [70] But it appears to have lost its historic name in 1992. [71] Until 2000 it was called the Sydney Institute of Technology.

At the end of 1997 the New South Wales TAFE Commission, the Department of Training and Education Coordination and the Department of School Education were amalgamated to form the Department of Education and Training. TAFE NSW had lost its authority as a government department in 1991, but it did retain its identity within the new organisation. [72] No longer a department in its own right, TAFE NSW sits within the Department of Education and Training in 2010, just as before 1949 the Technical Education Branch sat within the Department of Public Instruction.

There are now 11 TAFE Institutes in New South Wales. In 2000, the Ultimo campus became part of TAFE NSW's Sydney Institute. The other six campuses that make up the Sydney Institute are the Design Centre Enmore, and the Randwick, Petersham, Eora, St George and Sutherland colleges. [73]

Notes

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