The managing director of TAFE NSW has said the state's only public vocational education provider should operate more like a "large supermarket chain".
Jon Black, TAFE's managing director and a former commanding officer at Duntroon, made the analogy in a memo to staff last week.
In his "Friday five" message Mr Black answered his own "hot question".
"Will the [TAFE] institutes be merging, and how will this happen?" he wrote to staff.
"From an operational perspective, consider the analogy of a large supermarket chain: customers are assured of the high-quality products wherever they are located, with some unique local offerings," he said.
The comment has outraged teachers after the NSW government announced a "once-in-a-generation reform" in which 10 autonomous TAFE institutes will be merged into a single, multi-campus, billion-dollar entity.
Since 2012, TAFE has lost up to 100,000 students and 5000 jobs from the 125-year-old institution, after being forced to compete with the private vocational education market.
A spokeswoman for TAFE Community Alliance, Linda Simon, said Mr Black was comparing teaching to buying washing powder.
"Whatever happened to teaching and teachers?" she said. "Next, [TAFE] will be offering 'training products off the shelf', completely ignoring the complexity of quality, flexible, accessible and responsive education."
On Thursday, Mr Black defended his comments, describing them as "just an analogy".
"It's not an analogy about education and training – it's purely about our back-end operations and the behind-the-scenes structure that will help us deliver the world-class training employers want and students need," he said.
NSW Skills Minister John Barilaro praised the changes to TAFE's strategy under Mr Black.
Before joining TAFE in November, Mr Black was a former manager of the army's individual officer and soldier training programs and director-general for the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection.
Mr Barilaro highlighted the rebranding of the vocational education provider's strategy as "ONE TAFE", drawing comparisons with the the Australian Defence Force business strategy "One Defence".
"ONE TAFE NSW will meet the needs of tomorrow's workforce," said Mr Barilaro.
"TAFE NSW is focused on making sure students get jobs, employers get a workforce, that TAFE continues to grow as a successful business and that communities flourish," he said.
