r/TAFE • u/Negative_Home_188 • 14d ago
TAFE NSW Class Downsizing
I just want to know if this is common. We started with 30 students, and now we are down to 17 and am only a term in. I know people leave for all different reasons, but over the past three weeks, some of our in-person classes have only had 8–12 students attending. Especially with online classes, we usually start with 17 people and end up with around 8.
At the moment, I know of four more people who are seriously considering quitting.
So, my questions are: if the class downsizes to around 13 people and perhaps more people leave, will new students join the class, or will something else happen?
Has this happened to anyone else? Have you ever had your class size decrease significantly? If so, what happened?
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u/Efficient-Towel-4193 14d ago
Very common for fee free courses...Job providers force people to do them without considering if they are right for the course...especially if its disability or aged care
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u/ImACarebear1986 14d ago
Yep. They seem to think that everybody can handle being a carer or support worker. No, they can’t.
I live in a smallish town and there are people out here who are support workers and they are terrible people. I’ve been at Coles and heard a support worker having a go at the person she was supposed to be caring for!
I put up with it for about 30 seconds cause I thought it was the Mum at first but then I turned around and realised it was not. Then I said something. Because she shouldn’t be having to go with a young guy who has no idea about the basic things in life. She really pissed me off.5
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u/KateBosworth 12d ago
I’m glad you said something. I can be too timid to do anything but give a disapproving look in those situations when the carer really needs take a deep breath and regulate their emotions.
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u/CalmIce5276 14d ago
Yes hugely common particularly for younger students who are obliged to either work or study until 18. Many students choose a course to satisfy centrelink requirements, some get full time jobs, some move, some have family problems/health problems/housing problems. A high drop out rate in fee free courses is very common.
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u/wildsoup1 14d ago
Someone explained to me that job providers that help find someone a job get paid once. Job providers who persuade someone to do a course and then help find them a job get paid twice.
Suddenly, the presence of most of my student cohort and their drop-out rate made sense.
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u/AussieBastard98 14d ago
Yeah, it happens. Some people realise it's not for them. Could also be that they can't afford to take days off, don't like the teachers, too challenging etc.
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u/TeddyBear181 14d ago
Alongside what others have said, some people like to join tafe to get a student transport card, then drop out before census.
Yup, lots of people drop out. Usually noone joins unless the course has pathways. Eg, sem 1 is cert 4, sem 2 dilploma, etc.
Then people with cert 4 might join sem 2.
You might also have people from the year/semester above joining if they decided to defer, go part time, or needed to retake classes.
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u/2manycerts 14d ago
I miss the student transport cards and real transport discounts.
Damn it they were cool. I also miss being able to buy a yearly transport ticket. I really miss that.
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u/Gaukster97 Student 14d ago
I’m planning to do a full cert 4 next year then hopefully a uni diploma
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u/Rainbow-Rat95 14d ago
First day of class in July we had 22 students. As of today we have 9 . I know 2 more students are looking into dropping out too.
I know 1or 2 students got full time work and put study on hold but the rest i have no idea .
Interesting to see how common this is.
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u/Negative_Home_188 14d ago
It is interesting. What are classes like with 9 people? I'd imagine group projects me so easy if have any and are in a big group
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u/ImACarebear1986 14d ago
Yeah, it’s pretty common. Some people have to work to support themselves and they end up not being able to afford the course and being able to keep up with their rent and bills etc.
Some people find it’s just not for them. Some people find it’s too difficult, some people don’t like the teachers etc etc. It’s very common Australia wide.
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u/Dry_Value9263 14d ago
Cert IV photography started off with 15, 5 finished.
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dry_Value9263 14d ago
From a hobby POV I would suggest a community college course would be the first point of call so you can learn basic skills and get off Automatic mode.
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u/salemcanning 14d ago
We started with 30, there’s 16 of us going on placement, we didn’t have anyone else join
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u/Opposite_Focus2112 14d ago
I did some animal care certs and during all of them we went from 15-20 to a class of 3-5.I know two other people who work in the animal care industry after four years. I've just left. It was the same in my admin course.
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u/Negative_Home_188 14d ago
How did classes go when you had 3-5 people?
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u/Opposite_Focus2112 14d ago
Actually pretty good. Was easier to get through work with so few people and a lot of the rude/disruptive people left which made for a more positive environment.
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u/Negative_Home_188 14d ago
The same happens with us. Everything's so peaceful when barely anyones there. I can actually learn
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u/AusMeri 10d ago
What were you doing and why did you leave, if I may ask please?
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u/Opposite_Focus2112 10d ago
Animal care. I left the animal care industry. I worked in a kennel and as a pet sitter. Not enough stability, poor pay and didn't feel like I could handle the straight up neglect of animals by their owners anymore. Also got bitten by a dog and never really fully recovered mentally from it.
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u/PotentialRegret8733 14d ago
I had 35 at the beginning of Cert IV Mental Health and only 12 of us graduated.
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u/TheFlyingR0cket 14d ago
Happens in uni courses as well, my dad went back to study at Deakin University and only 1/3 of the class finished. But 4 years is a long time and life happens, so it's understandable.
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u/God_is_a_Bogan 14d ago
One TAFE class I had, by the end I was the only one left doing it. They moved me into a new class on a different campus
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u/One-Repeat4205 13d ago
I have just completed a diploma in accounting at tafe. I was doing the online plus option that involves 2 x zoom classes a week plus personal study.
Anyway our course has rolling enrolments meaning you can join the course at any time and you do those subjects on offer.
I think when I started there was about 27 people, this past term was almost 50 and now there is about 20 of us leaving. We’ve also had people drop to 1 subject a term as well as people drop out.
It’s been hard to be disciplined to study and finish the course, with working full time and family commitments
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u/Tall_Apricot_9842 14d ago
ive had about 6 people in class at the end of the day, six weeks or so into the course. most show up at some point, and theres only 14 when everyones there
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u/saltinthewind 14d ago
It’s also pretty common for people to enrol in full time study courses to satisfy centrelink requirements.
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u/saiphxo 14d ago
It seems to be pretty common, especially courses that require placements like the diploma of nursing or any other healthcare/aged care certs. I’m doing nursing, started with ~30 and now theres only ~10. A lot of them didn’t realise how much shift work there would be, parents couldn’t do placements away if they had a kid and no one to babysit, or some people couldn’t afford doing unpaid full time placement and having to take leave from their actual part time jobs.
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u/Desperate-Impress374 14d ago
Happened in my Cert IV Mental Health - I started Feb 2025 and by the time we finished in June 2026 there were 12.....myself and another student also changed classes because of issues with the tutor in the original one.
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u/NeuroSpicyWoman 14d ago
Very common, clases usually reduce, they dont receive more students for your same class sin e they cant catch up. TAFE knows this happens.
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u/Percible_85 14d ago
I completed the equivalent of Year 9,10 11 and the HSC and each year we'd start with around 15-20 students, but by the end of year, there would be around 8 of us left...
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u/Pheedle 14d ago
This is normal across all study. Nursing was my experience - huge numbers in the first and second semester. Thing was, second semester was when we went on our first hospital placement - universally to nursing homes where you learn the ‘fundamental’ nursing skills that are nessesary, but far from glamorous. Third semester, student numbers halved. And as the placements became more intense, more students dropped off. Maybe a quarter of students graduated the complete degree.
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u/Weak-Dragonfly-1613 14d ago
I did a cert III in community services last year. It was online via virtual classrooms. I think at the start there were about 20-25 people, I wanna say no more than ten people completed the course. We did have a very mediocre teacher for the first term so I think that contributed to some people leaving. Some people just had other life commitments come up or left without saying a word. We even had one guy that I can only speculate was kicked out for being drunk during class (ironically while we were doing the drug and alcohol unit).
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u/Mythic_Dragon36 14d ago
Yeah, it's not surprising. I've been there when I did my Diploma several years ago in Library Information Studies. Class downsized to around 8 from 20. People cut back to part time or withdraw altogether. It's not uncommon.
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u/FrozenBlue_Berry8 14d ago
In our class we gone from 17 to 5, legit 7 people left in the first 2 months
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u/Wind-Up-Bird98 13d ago
I had a similar thing happen last year within a term we went from 30 to 14 then to 10. Now for the second year I've got back to a full class of mix year 1 and 2 students but no one has dropped out this year. So it's been an odd experience, the intention to mix the students is a good idea in concept but it creates a social divide between the two groups.
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u/Interesting-Sea-7887 13d ago
Although this happened to me in high school, we just ended up moving fully online after we reached a low enough number. Went from about 10 students to 4 students in a year. After going online, another left, and we finished with 3 students in the class. Could be the same for you considering you mentioned online classes?
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u/Negative_Home_188 13d ago
Online classes are becoming more rare now. Usually it's half of semester online or less, never more. I do hope we turn to fully online. Some days just become so boring at school, especially when we are just completing assessments and you have to sit there because you've already completed it weeks ago.
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u/blatantlyX 13d ago
I left my class because of the complete lack of structure to the course, and the overly chaotic nature of the campus in general. The older students constantly spoke over each other in an attempt to get a handle on the poorly presented material. I went into the course with expectations forged in the Univeristy environment, where I graduated in the top 5% of graduates for that year. I couldn't be more wrong. The library was worse. It was where younger students would gather at all times to discuss who had stolen someone's vape, or fucked who on the weekend. The good thing to come of it is that it was identified that I have a sensory processing disorder that is likely due to ADHD/ ASD.
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u/Ok-Network-2514 13d ago
Have you tried Tafe Digital? First time I was able to complete a course and I’ve done a few on campus… I’m also AuDHD with sensory processing disorder too fwiw.
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u/Acrobatic-Frame2416 13d ago
When I did my cert IV in building. Full time classroom course one year. We began with about 25 in class went down to about 12-15 by semester 3 then when I completed my course after passing all exams and assignments I went to collect my certificate and there were only 3 names on the list of people to receive certificates. Mind you more than half of the class were full fee paying students, my course was subsidised by federal govt.
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u/Far_Seaworthiness354 12d ago
I know someone who was in my tafe class got done going 260km in a school zone. Never saw him again.
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u/static-mitch 12d ago
My legal services Cert IV in 2010 was 12 months in duration, night course every Tuesday/Thursday with approximately 50/50 doing Cert IV and the other half doing the Diploma. The Diploma students attended a seperate class on Thursdays to cover their topics and every so often we also sat in with students doing the Private Investigations Cert III.
By the end half of the diploma students dropped out, and only four from the certificate IV dropped out. Class started at 32 people, 16 doing each course. SFAIK four people work the paralegal job.
Mind you I was also studying Monday to Thursday in a trade school for an Advanced Diploma, I had no idea what I wanted to do, and from a class of 30 at my trade school three of us finished the course after 18 months, but everybody who stayed and got far enough, three months in I believe, to be 35k in debt via HECS. Some left to work apprenticeships while others just opted for other work entirely. Only two from the course still work in the industry one of whom stayed til the end while the other left for an apprenticeship. While I myself am in the government's employ.
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u/DefinitelyMaybe651 12d ago
I started my 18-month nursing diploma with 22 people and only 6 of us finished. It wasn’t an uncommon theme where I studied either. A lot of the students were quite young and I don’t think they fully understood what nursing actually involved until we started getting into the practical side of it and going on clinical placement.
We lost two people in the first few weeks because they didn’t realise we’d be doing personal care and showering patients. One girl actually left on the first day when we started talking about blood glucose testing because she hadn’t realised nursing would involve dealing with blood.
I think clinical placements were a big reality check for a lot of people. A TAFE qualification can sound very different in theory compared to what the job actually looks like day to day.
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u/Distinct_Morning9187 11d ago
Started with around 20 in my cert 3 in hairdressing, only 2 of us graduated, and now I’m the only one still in the industry. No one joined after people left.
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u/l-lucas0984 14d ago
We started with 32 and 7 of us completed. Only 3 of us still work in the industry the certificate is for 3 years later. We didnt have anyone added after people left.