In a prelude to what the Minister for Skills and Training, The Hon Brendan O’Connor was about to drop at the Press Club later in the day, he was interviewed by Patricia Karvelas on ABC Radio National Breakfast.
The opening question was a good one. How many international students are impacted by dodgy vocational providers?
The answer was not so good. No numbers, no variables. Waffle. Karvelas followed up with, “Will every provider be looked at?” the Minister responded, “Look, that’s not necessary. And 4,000 providers in the VET sector – overwhelmingly those education and training providers, including TAFE of course, do an excellent job in providing education and training, supplying the skills to our economy and skills to workers and businesses that are crying out for those skills. But there is a significant enough element, there’s a significant proportion of those providers that need to be focused upon.”
They move on. The Koala will come back to this.
From the Press Club
At the traditional lunchtime event, the Minister appeared at the National Club to further promote the Skills and Training portfolio and the reforms taking place within it.
From an international education perspective, the key details had already been made public via a press release this morning. TKN’s piece on this can be found here. The release can be found here.
In summary:
- a new Integrity Unit will be established within the national VET regulator, the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), bolstered by a $37.8 million investment to ensure it is adequately equipped and has the technology and data-matching capability to identify and respond proactively to unethical and potentially illegal activity.
- Boosting ASQA’s capacity will enable a compliance blitz on unlawful behaviour, targeting non-genuine providers who may be exploiting international students.
- The integrity unit will work in conjunction with Home Affairs, the Australian Federal Police and other Commonwealth and State law enforcement agencies to conduct intense compliance checks on high-risk providers – ensuring a safer VET sector for all students, both domestic and international.
- The Government investment will fund an uplift in digital and data systems, that will enable ASQA to further support intelligence gathering and sharing with other agencies, to boost compliance and law enforcement efforts and identify trends or activity that may be evidence of unlawful behaviour.
- A confidential VET tip-off line will also be established for current and former students, staff, and other potential whistle-blowers such as homestay hosts and employers of international students.
Background of Skills and Training
The Minister set the backdrop of Skills and training. It would appear there’s a lot of work to do. While a tad arduous, it’s good background to understand some of the drivers underpinning current action.
“It is exactly 50 years since the Whitlam Government commissioned Myer Kangan to provide advice on the development of technical and further education in Australia. His report to the government established the foundation for a modern TAFE sector built on the tradition of our finest trade and technical colleges. But with a vision for something bigger.
The report made the link between vocational education and training and national prosperity, and for the first time, this link was comprehensively acknowledged by a commonwealth government. Significantly, the report was tri-partied. It brought together employers, unions, and educators, state and territory governments. The report was of such seminal importance to Australia’s national development that one of Australia’s exceptional TAFE colleges bears the author’s name.
For the first time, significant commonwealth funds were invested through grants to the states to build new technical colleges, create new and more facilities and train new technical staff. It was the birth of Australia’s modern vocational education sector. It was a moment of promise that should have created a great national skills training sector equal in status to our university sector, as is the case in many other countries.
But if we are being honest, the policies of successive governments, federal and state, have cast TAFE, community providers and the VET sector adrift from its purpose of national prosperity. The VET sector has endured underfunding, deregulation, loose rules of vet market entry a lack of national cohesion and an obsession for competition at the expense of collaboration.
In the face of this neglect and policy missteps the sector has performed admirably but we can do better.”
There’s nothing quite like a government that will “fix” 50 years of getting it wrong.
Perceptions of Low Quality
The Minister said, “in order for any of this agenda to be successful, we first have to overcome perceptions about the poor relative quality of Vocational Education and Training in Australia. It is one of the reasons why I asked my colleague Lisa Chesters to chair a parliamentary inquiry into the perceptions and status of Vocational Education and training, which will report this year.”
It’s anyone’s guess what that inquiry will find. Yes, that’s sarcasm.
More information on the inquiry can be found here.
Collaboration between The University and VET sectors
The Minister spoke at length on this topic. However, one important fact viewed via an international education lens would be an example the minister provided.
“Vocational and education training must be held in the same high public esteem, just as it is in countries like Germany and Switzerland. In Switzerland, over 60 per cent of students take a vocational education pathway, and around half of those go on to gain a university-level qualification.” He said
The Minister states both he and Minister Clare (Education) “need to increase collaboration between the two tertiary sectors.”
A point well made. The Koala hopes Minister O’Neil at Home Affairs watched the address and looks forward to seeing the rise of visa grants into VET programs from India. The month of May grant data shows a grant rate of 6.2 per cent when applying from India, while the onshore grant rate for Indian nationals was 97 per cent. Perhaps, just like Switzerland, Indians may like a (quality) VET pathway to University.
ASQA’s Response: the Tip-Off Line is Online Tomorrow
The Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) has welcomed the investment announced earlier today by the Australian Government.
ASQA CEO Saxon Rice said these initiatives would boost ASQA’s capability, reflecting the current threats to the integrity of the VET sector.
“The nature of our operating environment is highly dynamic, and we must ensure our regulation is equipped to meet this challenge,” Ms Rice said.
“These measures will enable us to scale up our work to stamp out criminal and non-genuine behaviour, including by better enabling students and members of the public to come forward with tip-offs about those not doing the right thing, and through more effective information- and intelligence-sharing across government.”
ASQA already undertakes extensive performance assessment, monitoring and compliance activities, along with education and overall work with providers to build their capability and uplift their practices for assuring their own delivery and continuous improvement of quality training.
These initiatives, which the Australian Government will invest $33.3m in over 3 years, will support ASQA’s actions to tackle integrity in the sector as identified in the Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia’s Visa System, led by Christine Nixon AO.
“We know the majority of providers are motivated to deliver quality training outcomes but unfortunately, there are some within the sector that don’t share that motivation. This puts students at risk, and risks damaging the overall reputation of the sector,” Ms Rice added.
These initiatives build on the measures recently announced by the Australian Government to target unethical, dishonest or non-genuine providers that undermine confidence in the VET sector.
This included strengthening the rules for the fit and proper persons test, which gave ASQA broader authority to scrutinise people who own, operate and manage registered training organisations and ensure they meet higher and broader standards.
ASQA’s tip-off line will be open from 9am AEDT tomorrow, Wednesday 4 October. Anyone with information is encouraged to call 1300 644 844 or go to ASQA’s website to provide a tip-off through the newly established webform.
Oh, and the answer to that opening ABC Breakfast question I hear you ask. David Crowe, Political Editor at the SMH and The Age and facilitator at the Press Club meet, must have tuned into PK at Breakfast as he was pointed in asking. The answer to the question of dodgy providers. “Probably more than a dozen, but under 100” said the Minister.
With such a small variance, ASQA’s work should be easy-peasy, the Koala says cheekily.
The ABC Breakfast transcript can be seen here.
The address can be seen on ABC iview here.
