Education Minister Chris Bourke has also described as “amazing” the Canberra Liberals failure to include the vocational education provider in its $3.6 billion plan for education.

As the government entered caretaker mode today, Dr Bourke said ACT Labor would commit $7.5 million to build a new Tuggeranong campus for the CIT.

The CIT learning centre in Tuggeranong has operated out of the Tuggeranong Arts Centre since the 1990s.

A site has not been identified for the new facility, but Dr Bourke said the new centre would cater to more students than the current building and would offer a wider range of courses.

“This will be a centre which enables Tuggeranong CIT students to come in, learn, to do their courses online, to get learning assistance,” he said.

“It means they won’t have to travel up to Reid, up to Bruce to get some of their learning done.

“The new centre will be bigger, it will offer more facilities and it will enable the kind of support that students here in Tuggeranong need.”

ACT Labor made the announcement the same morning it was revealed that the Canberra Liberals had failed to include the CIT in their $3.6 billion education package.

Budget papers show the Opposition’s education plan is $400 million less than the existing $4 billion budget for education over the next four years.

The Liberals said yesterday that CIT was not included in the plan they were advertising for education, but the vocational education provider would still be funded under a Liberals government.

“It’s amazing that the Canberra Liberals could actually forget that the CIT was part of education and training in the ACT,” Dr Bourke said.

“Either that or there is a $400 million black hole in their education policy.

“What are they thinking?”