Federal investment funds Bendigo skills and training centre

The federal government has committed $38 million to a new skills and training centre in Bendigo that will be operated by GOTAFE and will deliver certificate and diploma programs in the construction, health, and clean energy trades that Bendigo's growing economy is struggling to recruit locally. The centre will be located on the former Bendigo Pottery site in Epsom, which has been redeveloped as an education and skills precinct following the pottery's closure.

Skills Minister Brendan O'Connor said the Bendigo centre was one of 23 new TAFE facilities being funded under the government's TAFE Revitalisation Program, noting that the concentration of skills shortages in trades directly connected to the government's housing construction, healthcare, and clean energy priorities made investment in trade training infrastructure both economically and socially urgent.

The centre will have capacity for approximately 1,200 students across its full-time and part-time programs and is expected to produce approximately 400 qualified trade graduates annually once fully operational. The construction trades programs will feed directly into the residential construction pipeline that Bendigo's population growth is generating, addressing one of the key supply constraints that has limited new housing delivery in the Bendigo local government area.

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