Last week the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) released its Regulatory Risk Priorities for 2024-25. Most of the risk priorities for 2024-25 are ongoing priority areas from the previous year, including international delivery, with non-genuine providers and bad-faith operators a new addition to the list.
International delivery continues to be a Regulatory Risk Priority, with ASQA identifying in its research that:
- Some ESOS providers are not meeting obligations to monitor course progress and attendance.
- Some providers and third parties are engaging in misleading or hostile marketing practices.
- Some providers are issuing fraudulent qualifications to both onshore and offshore international students for financial gain, either via recognition of prior learning or where the student did not undertake the required study.
- Professional facilitators such as education and/or migration agents may enrol their clients into RTOs they own or manage, possibly presenting a conflict of interest detrimental to students.
In response, ASQA will focus on the following priorities in 2024-25:
- ‘ghost colleges’
- Fit and Proper Person requirements
- misleading marketing practices
- non-compliance with reporting obligations
- fraudulent issuance of qualifications
In targeting non-genuine providers and bad-faith operators, ASQA says it will focus on Fit and Proper Person requirements, fraudulent issuance of qualifications, funding fraud, liquidated or cancelled providers re-emerging under a new business identity, infiltration of serious organised crime and bad-faith operators into genuine RTOs.
ASQA’s 2024-25 Regulatory Risk Priorities are:
- Non-genuine providers and bad-faith operators
- International delivery
- Academic cheating
- Recognition of Prior Learning
- Shortened course duration
- Student work placement
- Online delivery
The 2023-24 Regulatory Risk Priorities were:
- Student work placement
- Academic integrity
- Online delivery
- Shortened course duration
- Recognition of Prior Learning
- Workforce capability
- Governance through change
- International student delivery
ASQA uses a risk-based approach to determine the most significant risks to achieving ASQA’s purpose of ensuring quality VET and the integrity of national qualifications issued by training providers. ASQA undertakes an annual environmental scan (e-scan) to inform its risk priorities and areas of focus for the year.
