00:02Last November, CDU announced Professor Scott Bowman would continue as Vice-Chancellor for the next five years.
00:08But today, it's all over.
00:10It has been a difficult time for CDU, not just our staff, but also all of the students affected, our
00:16graduates and employers who have been affected.
00:18Appointed in 2021, Professor Bowman steered the university through the post-COVID period and opened campuses here and abroad.
00:25But the bungle at the CDU TAFE school he helped establish brought his tenure to an abrupt end.
00:31Our teams did pick up the gaps and identified them, but they were from mid-2022 and we should have
00:38been able to pick those up sooner.
00:39So we're working out how that happened.
00:42Nearly 300 former students have been impacted by this bungle, including 39 carpentry apprentices ready for graduation and another 92
00:49who already graduated.
00:50But as the university looks to put the debacle behind it, some politicians have questions about the clean-up process.
00:56Well, there does need to be an absolute audit of this and that's why that Australian Skills Quality Authority need
01:02to get in there and get to the bottom of it.
01:04Because not only do we need to fix the mistake and address these hundreds of kids, we've then got to
01:09create certainty again and explain to the community how that's been fixed.
01:13Professor Bowman will take leave until his contract expires in April this year, but the independent member for Araluan wants
01:20clarity.
01:20These departures of high-level executives in the Northern Territory seem to go with a pretty hefty price tag for
01:28the taxpayers of the Northern Territory usually.
01:30So I hope that there's some clarification around just what it looks like, this picture of him taking, quote, a
01:38period of leave.
01:39It sounds to me like he hasn't actually resigned.
01:41Meanwhile, the university has hired an external TAFE expert to investigate.
01:46We will be having that review over the next week and having a report within the next fortnight.
01:51We'll then continue to work through those pieces.
01:54Searching for answers on the potentially long road to recovery.
01:58.
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