Major funds boost for Chisholm

Tertiary trainer Ben Raulin helps Training and Skills Minister Gayle Tierney and Dandenong MP Gabrielle Williams to apply vinyl to a car with student Sam Grieci, 21, from Dandenong North. 166699

By Casey Neill

Chisholm Institute has welcomed a $12 million boost.
“We’ll make sure it’s put to good use,” Chisholm board chairman Stephen Marks said.
Training and Skills Minister Gayle Tierney visited the TAFE’s Dandenong campus to make the announcement on Wednesday 29 March.
Mr Marks also told her that Chisholm had been entrenched in the South East for nearly 20 years.
In response, Ms Tierney said Chisholm should be proud of its reputation.
She’d just helped students to apply vinyl to vehicles in the school’s automotive training centre and toured the mechatronics and robotics workshop.
Ms Tierney said the cash would come from the Stronger TAFE Fund, part of Skills First, and would make sure Chisholm had the resources needed to address industry skill gaps, deliver innovative training and grow enrolments.
“I think there is a new spring in our step,” she said.
“There is a new era of opportunity in terms of TAFE in this state.”
She also met representatives from Chisholm’s Skills and Jobs Centre, located on Lonsdale Street in Dandenong, and heard that the centre had helped more than 1200 individuals and 139 employers with training and careers advice, employment services and workshops since opening in January last year.
In the past two years, Chisholm has received $38.5 million from the TAFE Rescue Fund, $2.9 million from the TAFE Back to Work Fund and $1.4 million for Skills and Jobs centres.