Education and Skills Minister Nick McKim appointed an interim board chairwoman last week, and insisted that he was on track to delivering a single vocational education and training entity for the state.

He said the most pressing job for chairwoman Kathryn Thomas was helping appoint a chief executive.

However, this week the Education Department published its plan to get the job done that included a timeline to recruit a CEO by the end of August.

Interviews with the shortlisted candidates for that position did not begin until this week.

Opposition education spokesman Michael Ferguson has questioned Mr McKim's ability to meet the July 1 deadline.

``I'm satisfied that the right policy directions are now being taken, but the government has wasted a lot of time in adopting our policies so late,'' he said.

Australian Education Union TAFE division president Rex Calvert said there was enough time to get things right, as new student enrolments in TasTAFE would not start until 2014.

Tasmanian State School Parents and Friends president Jenny Eddington was more pessimistic.

``Given that the appointment of a board chair has only just been made and they're yet to appoint a CEO I would think it's a fairly ambitious timeline,'' she said.

The 25 actions listed in the plan as critical include:

 Hiring a chief executive officer.

 Drawing up legislation, which will be put through Parliament between February and May.

 Communicating with staff at the Tasmanian Skills Institute and Tasmanian Polytechnic. A second round of regional meetings is planned for next month.

 Setting up working groups to look at legislation, finance, marketing and enrolments.

In publishing the plan, department secretary Colin Pettit said careful planning and the ``full co-operation and support of staff'' would be critical in ensuring TasTAFE was up and running on time.

Malcolm Wells, deputy secretary of Further Education and Training, said while there was still a lot of work to do the plan was on track.