VICTORIAN business has been reporting for several years now that skill and labour shortages are worsening and are having an adverse impact on the wider economy.

In this context, figures released this week by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research are disturbing: students completing higher-level vocational and education training dropped by 12.9% in 2006 from the year before.

While immigration will fill some gaps, our education and training system is the key to repairing the yawning skills holes that are opening up.

Vocational education and training in particular is vital, provided in Victoria mainly by TAFEs, supplemented by a host of private providers.

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