THE Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE has proposed staff cuts, fee hikes, selling land and a merger with La Trobe University as part of its survival plans.
A leaked document reveals NMIT is struggling with debt and predicts a “significant” deficit of $8.9 million in 2013, but expects to break even in 2014. NMIT and others hit by the government’s $290 million TAFE cuts provided confidential survival plans to the government.
The institute, with campuses and training centres in Epping, Eden Park and Yan Yean, revealed it wanted $12 million from state and federal governments to transform itself into a polytechnic university offering career-focused programs as a stand-alone facility or as a wholly owned subsidiary of La Trobe University, according to the document. NMIT said it had started talks to merge with La Trobe University as an independent corporate entity controlled by La Trobe. “NMIT would have its own board and would hold its own assets – similar to a Qantas/Jetstar model,” the institute said in its submission.
The document stated it would tap into La Trobe’s student places to provide higher education programs. Staff would be cut by 100 over the next 18 months and the face-to-face workload would almost double.
Although NMIT planned to keep most campuses, it proposed selling its Ararat campus and land in Jessie Street, Preston.
Fees were proposed to rise by an average of 50 per cent. The institute wanted to pick up programs dropped by other TAFES and grow its delivery of programs in Asia. Neither NMIT nor La Trobe would comment.
