Member Spotlight
Wodonga Institute of TAFE
Wodonga institute of TAFE is a quality provider of post secondary vocational education and training courses. The institute is constantly monitoring the needs and requirement of the local economy. In doing so, the future growth and prosperity of the region are considered along with promising job-opportunities for graduates, ensuring equal learning experiences to all students.
Wodonga Institute of TAFE was judged Australian Large Training Provider of the Year in 2008 due to its commitment to lead practice and excellence in the delivery of vocational education and training to diverse groups of learners from industry and the community.
Wodonga Institute is enhancing this commitment with an innovated multi-disciplined and multi-faceted holistic approach to more effectively achieve the sustainability goals and objectives indentified in our strategic plan.
Wodonga Institute of TAFE is committed to practising and teaching the principles of sustainable development. Our future work will be conducted considering the social and environmental consequences as well as financial outcomes of our practices and policies.
Sustainability achievements/programs
Wodonga Institute of TAFE (WIOT) has been committed to sustainability for many years and this commitment is increasingly our driving force in all aspects of our operations. However, this has only recently become the case to such an extensive degree and that is a direct result of our sustainability initiative. Our vision and objectives for sustainability are now detailed in our Strategic Plan with one of our guiding principles being to “act responsibly and sustainably towards our biophysical, social and economic environments”. Our key objective is to embed sustainability in all aspects of our operation including learning and teaching, infrastructure, utilities and engagements with industry and the community.
The principal driving force for our sustainability initiative was that we found achieving our sustainability objectives was proving more difficult than we had hoped. Across the Institute we were limited to seemingly ad hoc, reactive approaches in response to resource and communication constraints that consequently limited the scale and scope of what we were able to achieve. It became apparent that we required a multidiscipline and multi-faceted holistic approach to sustainability and that we needed a defined vehicle to not only deliver, but measure the achievement of our sustainability objective. In response we gathered interested parties from across the Institute and invested resources directed toward researching the options for WIOT to advance our sustainability objective. This initiative not only led to many actions that would progress us toward a more sustainable campus, but it gained vital additional executive support that subsequently led to investment in an additional 2.5 EFT staff to establish and drive our vehicle for delivering our sustainability objectives – the “Centre for Sustainable Skills” (CSS).
We committed our own funds as well as successfully competed for grant funds to achieve our sustainability objectives. The success in our application for funding under the Training Infrastructure Investment for Tomorrow (TIIFT) element of the Teaching and Learning Capital Fund (TLCF) for VET was the most significant of these grants and enabled us to build a new, sustainable building to house the CSS that is known as “TAFEspace”. This site allows us to demonstrate our commitment to and leadership in sustainability to our regional community. It also contributes to enhancing sustainability as a norm in the built environment in our region.
Our commitment to and participation in the Resource Smart Tertiary Education program enabled us to identify key indicators for success with respect to our sustainability objectives around infrastructure and utilities via, for example, resource savings. The Centre of Sustainable Skills and TAFEspace allows us to more readily facilitate and measure our success in embedding sustainability into our learning and teaching and engagement with industry and our regional community via, for example, collecting qualitative and quantitative data about our delivery and impacts. We intend that CSS will drive the achievement of our sustainability objective and establish WIOT as a leader in Tertiary Education and centre of excellence for sustainability in our region.
Centre for Sustainable Skills (CSS)
TAFEspace was opened on 1 November 2010 and became fully operational on 17 January 2011. The primary objectives of CSS are to coordinate and/or ensure outcomes toward our sustainability objective including:
- Action and sustainability plan and environment policy for WIOT
- Commitment and reporting in ResourceSmart Tertiary Education, Sustainability Victoria Embed sustainability into teaching and learning
- Victorian Certificate in Adult Learning (VCAL) programs now include the unit VBQU179 Students investigate sustainability,
- Delivery of the Diploma of Sustainability using online tools
- Approximately 200 sustainability units within multiple training packages currently being delivered by WIOT
- Over 1100 participants engaged in sustainability units from the period of February 2009 to January 2011
- Capability to deliver increased and innovative training outcomes
- TAFE Specialist Scholarship – TAFE Development Centre
- Teaching and Learning Capability – Building in the TAFE Teaching Workforce Program
- Actively research and source appropriate funding
- Actively engage with enterprises, community networks and other tertiary institutes to work collaboratively on projects
- Two VET practitioners scholarship in Vocational Graduate Certificate in Education and Training for Sustainability
