Time to change how we measure TAFE KPIs?
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 131 No 2, 2 April 2026, page no 22.
I recently attended the Australian VET Conference, held in Sydney on 12 and 13 March.
A lot of discussion at the conference surrounded issues solely of interest to private VET providers. However, some topics were relevant to members who work for CQU and TAFE Queensland. One of those subjects was return on investment (ROI), which naturally led on to discussions around key performance indicators (KPIs).
VET education does not always feel as highly valued in society as other tertiary pathways, with university degrees sitting above VET education in many people’s minds as a viable route to a great career. Until the Albanese Government’s commitment to Fee Free TAFE and rebuilding the TAFE system nationally, we have seen a lack of investment from policy makers to keep TAFE adequately funded.
Many see TAFE as just a shell of what it once was. This perception is sometimes mirrored internally, with administrative staff maybe seeing teaching staff less as contributors to educational outcomes and more as a financial burden within a KPI-driven system. The conference discussions on ROI and KPIs prompted me to reflect on how we arrived at this point.
While TAFE teachers don’t have KPIs, across Queensland TAFE teachers are experiencing the weight of expanding administrative demands. Management teams are assessed against KPIs that prioritise efficiency: how many students can be moved through a qualification for the lowest possible cost?
This often leads to decisions that minimise resourcing, increase class sizes, or otherwise prioritise costsaving measures to create efficiencies. The focus becomes delivering units of competency with fewer inputs to maximise — or at least stabilise — financial returns.
But at what cost? And what might change if KPIs were reframed? Instead of measuring success through the number of “competent” outcomes or the teaching hours required to generate a revenue target, what if policymakers adopted a broader perspective? What if student outcomes — real outcomes — became a KPI? Not simply whether a student achieved competency, but what that competency enabled them to do after completing their qualification?
Many young Australians come to TAFE with a goal. Their short-term goal is to get a qualification, complete a traineeship or trade, or take a course that will give them a better opportunity at a career. But after that?
VET education opens doors and changes lives! Those young people have the potential to be the powerhouses of our economy, running businesses or running teams within a business, hiring staff, purchasing goods and services to run those businesses, paying taxes — all of which have a positive knock-on effect for both the Queensland and Australian economies.
Shouldn’t this be how VET education KPIs are measured to determine funding and fortify TAFE’s relevance to our economy? A more holistic approach would better capture the true value VET provides to Queensland and to Australia. And if that value were more widely acknowledged, perhaps society’s perception of VET education would shift accordingly.
A pipe dream? Perhaps — but one I believe worth considering.