Working for [SA state] government has always had its perks...

Lots of recent concern has been raised about politicians' "Travel Rorts"

but how should we look at the short trips to USA, taken by nine (9)
TAFE Instructors, eg from Adelaide Institute of TAFE (AIT)?

Wasteful perk or necessary business travel? You decide...

One of the lucky USA-travellers told me that he was a help-desk
operator (perhaps long?) before signing up to lecture as part of AIT's
CTE Program - an 18-month (if taken full-time) course of instruction
in IT, apparently mostly funded by SA Premier's Scholarships.

Another is a recent graduate of a 4-year undergraduate uni degree
program, who worked just one year in the local IT industry before
joining AIT's CTE Program staff.

---

The CTE Program has been promoted - to potential students -
in large display ad's, eg at the back of The Advertiser's
(Saturday) "Careers" section, in connection with the
Au $ 11,500 SA Premier's Scholarship program, intended
to make the 10-course, 18-month program available to
[poor] South Australians.

The scholarships are interesting in themselves, as each recipient
must to sign a contract, agreeing to stay/work in IT in SA
[for each month studied]:

"...the Student agrees to reside and work in
the information technology industry within South Australia
in order to contribute to the growth and development
of this industry in South Australia."

How one can "reside ... in the information technology industry"
is anybody's guess...

Can it be -that- hard to retain IT people in South Australia,
....that this type of modern "indentured servitude" is needed?

---

The CTE Program is has some limitations:

- if a sign on door outside AIT's computer drop-in center
is any indication, AIT is anti-Linus:

"Information Notice

Accessing the Internet using the LINUX
operating system is not permitted.

All Internet activity using LINUX
must be done in an approved location
and under supervision of your lecturer.


Principle Lecturer
Adelaide IT Studies"

One instructor was reportedly seen run-
ning to the computer of a student, in the
classroom, to instruct him to cease using
a CD-ROM-based Linux system, so it
appears that the above bias is being sub-
stantially enforced, in the State that has
signed a whole-of-government contract
with Microsoft, on the supply & usage
of Microsoft software on its computers.

(At least OpenBSD, FreeBSD, et al.
have yet to be forbidden...

- there is no Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) for even
the most elementary CTE coures (this is a money spinner
not an RPL path to IT certification, etc.)

- upwards of US $ 250.00 goes to USA, for -each-
of the 10 CTE courses, when it is taken in Adelaide,
according to one CTE course coordinator

- arbitrary course pre-requisites are enforced, eg:

"C" (which is a -subset- of "C++") can only be taken
-after- the larger "C++" ( SSD-6 & SSD-5, resp'ly)

- despite the gov't cap on "most" TAFE course fees
[ to be $ 1,200.00 for 12-months of study], the
CTE Program costs $11,500.00 for 18 months

- to justify the outrageous $11.500.00 course fees,
Adelaide Inst of TAFE has mapped -each- of the
10 CTE courses to -several- of its own courses

Eg, one student's first 3 short CTE courses mapped
to eight ( of AIT TAFE course [cooking the books?]
including two non-IT courses, ie:

Applications - Algebra (& a Part 2 to it)

- an "SA Premier's Scholarship" is available - but:

* at least one instructor reported that it's hard to
find people to apply for it,

* the money has to be paid back, if the 18-month
program is -not- completed by the student, &

* anyone completing it must live & work in IT in SA
one month for -each- month of funded study

- it is part on-line / part classroom (thus, not suitable
for distance-learning; Adelaide businesses are happy!)

- despite the significant level of on-line content,
books are still listed for purchase
(Dymocks bookshop will be pleased!)

- qualification for teaching CTE courses:
having passed the 10-course CTE Program

- instructors are provided with PowerPoint
slide sets (they don't really have to do much,
at least by way of planning course content
- just present fixed modules of training)

- Adelaide-based instructors are "under the
thumb" of US-based "mentors"

Mentors can re-grade students work and/or
tests, ie "looking over the shoulder of local
instructors (giving students reason to wonder
about the qualifications of their Adelaide-based
instructors)

Unfortunately, students do not seem to have
any clear right of appeal to the mentor(s), eg
on matters of course pre-requisites, et al.

Mentors are a resource for Adelaide-based
instructors.

- on-line material has no author names, &
judging from the number of typo's, it isn't
subject to the same rigorous editing pro-
cesses typical for published textbooks.

- access to on-line course material and
any work uploaded by a student is
-lost- if the student drops the course,
even late in the CTE term - thus, such
a student has no convenient way to
review for the next "go" at that course.

---

There has been a lot of change in CTE staff, ie
if the number of people holding the position
of "Principal Lecturer" is any indication;
there have been at least three (3) people
in that job since the start of the CTE Program.

Students report disappointment in the CTE
Program:

* a few weeks after the start of the first
term, one CTE student was heard to
ask (retorically) "Are we learning any
thing, yet?" to express his dissappoint-
ment at the elementary level of the ma-
terial presented to that point.

* one student - who told the (then) Principal
Lecturer that he was having trouble with a
course - reported having been advised to
"try" the final exam, ie -forego- the chance
to drop a course early enough to re-take it
(at no cost) for a 2nd time; he left the CTE
program, rather than pay for the 2nd go at
that particular course

* another student was expected to appear
in Adelaide for a "5-minute" enrollment-
appointment, during an inter-term break,
despite having informed the CTE Program
staff that he'd be interstate during the break,
long before the end of the previous term.

A similar inter-term trip lead to questions
of the student's South Australian residency
(it is apparently a requirement that one is
SA resident, to qualify for the Premier's
Scholarship)

The same student also received an EMPTY
envelope, sent by AIT's IT Studies' SA gov't
representative (Michael Scutter) - via
"AR Registered" Post (for which showing
a photo ID is required to claim it) - to verify
that he was actually situate in South Australia
when he took delivery of the same.

[ A web-site is in construction on the larger is-
sues of AIT's CTE Program - watch this space ]

Anyone with additional CTE stories to report?

Anybody getting real jobs after completing CTE?

How serious are they & how long are they lasting?

[The main emphasis is on Java & OOP dev't,
w/ a smattering of C & VB around the edges.

Although the claim is made that CTE updates
their courses every 6 months or so, there has
yet to be any hint of any move towards Open
Source development - eg Linux, Apache,
MySQL & Perl (LAMP) - or the like, any
time soon.

Hopefully, some local Open Sourcerers will
get together & create some courseware,
to compete with CTE's, that focusses on
LAMP or one of its counterpart, eh? ]

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