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Education Education

A recent APTC graduation ceremony in Kiribati (left) and APTC students. Photos: APTC

tourism workers who are currently out of a job in the Pacific leadership in the organisation,” she told staff and APTC part-
would earn income and “currency in the industry, with the ners. “When I started in April 2018, almost three years ago,
ability to be able to come back when hopefully borders are APTC was almost entirely run by Australians, we had done a
well and truly opened, because they are not going to get that great job of nationalising our trainers but there were only a
experience here at this point in time.” couple of Pacific Island managers - now the majority of our
“COVID has made all of us have to think outside the managers are Pacific Island citizens. This is very uncommon in
square,” she says. “What may have been a very simple or the aid programs management and something I am very proud to
normal pathway may have changed now, because of quaran- have contributed to.”
tine issues at both ends, because of COVID itself not allowing Some observers say the decision to make redundant five
ease of travel, but there are certain opportunities.” senior APTC managers, and the appointment of an Australian
with no Papua New Guinea experience to head APTC’s large
The end of a Pacific-led APTC? and complex PNG country office, is rolling back the locali-
APTC’s last publicly available Annual Report (2019) empha- sation/regionalisation achievements Middleby cites. Four
sised the Coalition’s “deep knowledge and understanding of members of the leadership team who’ve been told “their
the Pacific context” in “working with partners to address the positions are being considered for redundancy” are politically
complex challenges associated with TVET systems strength- well-connected Pacific Islanders with strong development
ening.” APTC’s senior Pacific development specialists and its experience. The fifth is the organisation’s deputy CEO, who
Country Directors have been central to this. has deep Pacific experience at the Pacific Community amongst
Speaking at her farewell in January this year, outgoing other organisations.
APTC CEO Soli Middleby talked of her pride as an Australian APTC staff have been told that the Coalition needed to re-
taxpayer in the “value for money we have achieved in all we align its strategy to meet DFAT’s expectations, respond to CO-
do.” VID-19 impacts and improve in areas where expectations have
She spoke of her initial reservations about the changes from not been met—essentially that DFAT was not happy with the
training college to coalition, before coming to the position Coalition’s performance. A rapid assessment was undertaken
that “a coalition that would work with like-minded champi- to look at each function in APTC and their performance. Like
ons across the region to build a stronger, better financed and the strategic review, the results of that rapid assessment have
higher quality TVET sector, and most importantly that it would not been made available to staff or stakeholders we spoke to.
support Pacific-led ideas to get to that better sector.” However Chapman says the changes are good business
“Perhaps most of all I am proud of the way we have seen practice.
more Pacific Island staff take up the senior leadership roles “If your strategic direction or your priorities or your focus
at APTC and the work we have done to prioritise and support changes, then you have to make sure that your structure is
local leadership and expertise and of the emergence of Pacific aligned to that, to be able to meet those changes. It’s not un-

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