In a meeting this morning with officials from the Printing Industries Associations of Australia and the Creative Skills Council, as well as a teacher from the print college, the Southbank Institute’s Craig Sherrin has indicated that he is willing to work with the industry to ensure that print training does not suffer.

“It seems now that the Southbank Institute is in a position to listen to what the industry wants and do something about it,” said Sam Nicolosi, from the Creative Industry Skills Council.

According to Nicolosi, the faculty has “guaranteed” that it won’t diminish print training operations at the Institute and is actually “looking to expand” them, with Nicolosi observing “we’ve never heard that from them before”.

“It’s going to be a long haul because of the financial deficit the faculty is running at, but we’ll be working collaboratively with them to get them back in the black,” said Nicolosi. “It’s looking very positive, but time will tell.”

Nicolosi also said the Institute has indicated it will hold various forums to gauge industry opinions down the track.

Print training advocate Ron Jackson, from the Lithographic Institute of Australia, had expressed scepticism earlier this week that the meeting would produce a positive outcome.

“I would love to think that they come up with a really great idea and improve print training or at least return to the fantastic programme we had ten years ago,” Jackson said in an email to industry colleagues that was obtained by ProPrint. “But I am not confident without a dedicated site and a TAFE that does not support Cert 2 and 3 Trade type courses.”

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