Ready to roam: Victorian Training and Skills Minister Gayle Tierney and GOTAFE CEO Travis Heeney celebrate the launch of the mobile campus.
Photo by
Rodney Braithwaite
A repurposed semi-trailer transformed into a mobile Goulburn Ovens Institute of TAFE campus has hit the road to improve access to training and career counselling for the regional and rural communities spread across 40,000 sq km in northern Victoria.
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When GOTAFE board chair Diana Taylor imagines who it will benefit, in her mind she sees a woman who is a busy parent and a carer for her elderly parents, and who never imagined further education would be available to her until she saw GOTAFE's brilliant, bright orange mobile campus parked on the main street of her regional town.
“It will open up education to people who thought it wasn't possible for them,” she said.
Warm and welcoming: GOTAFE board chair Diana Taylor says the mobile campus will be accessible to people of all abilities, and from all backgrounds.
Photo by
Rodney Braithwaite
GOTAFE's mobile campus will offer its services to prospective students, jobseekers and industry and community groups during a time when regional communities are facing never-before-seen social and economic challenges.
GOTAFE launched the mobile campus in Nagambie on November 4 and the repurposed truck is set to visit the Moira, Benalla, Campaspe, Gannawarra, Hume, Indigo, Macedon Ranges, Mansfield, Mitchell, Alpine, Murrindindi, Greater Shepparton, Strathbogie and Towong local government areas.
It will stay in each location for three to five days.
GOTAFE chief executive Travis Heeney said the mobile campus would help respond to the adversity regional communities faced by reducing the need to travel or relocate for training.
“We're taking education out to the community, instead of expecting them to come to us,” he said.
“At the heart of the mobile campus is hope to bridge the gap between our communities and deliver critical employment and education services, regardless of location, access and financial barriers.”
Welcomed: Taungurung Elder Aunty Jo Honeysett gave a Welcome to Country at the Nagambie launch.
Photo by
Rodney Braithwaite
The fully accessible mobile campus features a client reception area, private career counselling space, workshop and seminar space, and a community computer lab.
The cleverly converted four-wheeler will allow GOTAFE to support an additional 200,000 northern Victorians over the next three years.
The $850,000 mobile campus was made possible with $667,000 of funding from the Victorian Government, in partnership with GOTAFE and La Trobe University.
Victorian Training and Skills Minister Gayle Tierney said when the mobile campus waltzed into town she wanted everyone to knock on the door and see what possibilities were waiting for them.
She said GOTAFE's newfound ability to reach people in remote places had the potential to transform communities over time.
“The first thing I would like to see is the confidence built — that people know that they can stay in their own communities if they want to, and get the skills in their local communities, and get the jobs that are available in their local communities, and that younger people in our regional communities see that happening and they know that they can have a great opportunity as well,” Ms Tierney said.
“It's about building regional Victoria and building career prospects for regional kids.”
Taungurung Elder Aunty Jo Honeysett delivered a Welcome to Country at the launch of the mobile campus, and said providing opportunities to often-overlooked groups was a wonderful thing.
“To bring education to communities is something long overdue,” she said.
GOTAFE will work in partnership with 13 local governments, and team up with job active networks and financial support services, with the aim of ensuring the new initiative takes a “community-centred approach”.
