A new $50 million Melbourne Polytechnic Future of Housing Construction Centre of Excellence will be established as Australia’s first dedicated training facility exclusively focused on advanced construction courses.
This partnership will help provide a critical workforce productivity boost for the construction industry, to deliver our national housing needs.
The centre will be a driving force for nationwide growth in skills development for Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). Additionally, it will help address critical skills needs in the housing construction sector, by providing innovative training and creating an applied research hub, according to an official press statement.
The centre will focus on the design and delivery of new training practices; cutting-edge equipment will be a feature in the purpose-built facilities and digital technologies will be front and centre, with students having access to a holographic training suite.
With a goal of training and upskilling the next generation of the country’s housing workforce, TAFEs across Australia will benefit from the centre’s work as it explores better ways to support industry experts to transition into teaching roles and build MMC teaching capability.
Australia’s peak MMC body, prefabAUS, will provide expertise in prefabrication and modular construction techniques. Industry partners will be co-located at the centre to further incorporate collaboration.
This announcement follows the commitment of the Albanese and Allan Governments to address critical skills shortages, with the recent announcement of 5,200 new Free TAFE places in housing and construction courses for Victorians, providing accessible training opportunities and supporting national housing priorities.
This forms part of the Australian Government’s $325 million investment under the five-year National Skills Agreement, to establish a network of up to 20 TAFE Centres of Excellence.
Each centre will focus on high skills needs to help deliver a skilled workforce for strategically important industries.
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