Peter Heilbuth, who arrived from Victoria last week to take on the role, believes courses will still remain very affordable under the Smart and Skilled reforms, under which TAFEs are being forced to compete with private training providers for funding.

“I don’t think students have anything to fear and I honestly mean that,” he said. 

“I think the pricing issue is nowhere near as much of an issue as people have made it out to be. It’s true the government is expecting individuals to take more of a responsibility for paying when there is an individual return to that person, but I would suggest they’re being very careful to price it fairly.”

Mr Heilbuth said there were also generous concession schemes for 

eligible students, with about 70 per cent of TAFE New England students qualifying for some form of assistance.

He is no stranger to deregulation of the sector, having experienced the same process with the Victorian sector in recent years. 

Mr Heilbuth was the chief executive of the South West Institute of TAFE at Warrnambool for the past two years and has been involved in vocational education for almost two decades.

He said one of the greatest challenges in the next 12 months would be adjusting to a very diffferent funding system – from supply to demand-driven – but he credited his predecessors with doing a lot of groundwork that would assist with a smooth transition.

The organisation also needed to ensure it knew what industry required from it, and that may mean changes to courses and changes in the way they were delivered.

“In the past we may have operated more like a traditional school system, running a suite of courses in a set way, now it’s about thinking ... what else can we offer, what can we offer directly to industry,” Mr Heilbuth said.

“To be fair though, we already do that very well here.”

Mr Heilbuth is currently embarking on a tour of the region’s 11 campuses where he will “listen more than I speak”.