The government has announced a package of measures to support integrity in the international education system and to support genuine international students, while yesterday announcing reforms in VET to enhance integrity.
So what’s changing?
End to Concurrent COE’s
As reported by the Koala in the Weekly Wrap yesterday, the PRISMS was updated to remove the concurrent COE option. The Government says that there has been a sharp uptake in the use of the concurrent function in 2023 – in the first half of 2023, 17,000 concurrent enrolments were created, compared to approximately 10,500 for the same period in 2019 and 2022 combined.
Of the change, Minister Clare says “This change will work to stop predatory ‘second’ providers from enrolling students before they have studied for the required six months at their first provider.”
“This will help ensure the integrity of one of our biggest exports while cracking down on dodgy operators.” He says.
Increasing Demonstrated Savings
The Government will also increase the amount of savings international students will need in order to obtain a student visa. The government states this requirement has not been indexed since 2019 and needs to increase to reflect higher living expenses. From October 1 2023, international students will need to show evidence of $24,505 in savings, which is a 17% increase on current levels.
“This change will ensure students coming to Australia to study can afford to support themselves and will not face increased risk of exploitation due to an urgent need for employment,” the release said.
Further Scrutiny
The Government states it will apply additional scrutiny to high-risk cohorts and ask for additional documents to prevent application fraud. The Koala awaits details on these.
The Government will also consider using its powers under Section 97 of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act (ESOS Act) to issue suspension certificates to high-risk education providers. A suspension certificate means providers would not be able to recruit international students.
The release states “this would be the first time an Australian Government has used this power and reflects how seriously the Albanese Government takes the issue of dodgy providers. The Government will immediately begin consulting on possible regulations to set clear grounds for the use of suspension certificates, such as application rates with fraudulent documents and provider refusal rates. The Government is particularly concerned about more than 200 providers that currently have visa refusal rates higher than 50%.”
The Government is considering further measures to strengthen integrity in the international education system as part of the Migration Strategy, which is due to be released later this year.
Get the popcorn ready for this one.
VET Sector is Firmly in Sight
“These changes reflect our determination to strengthen the integrity of the VET sector.” Said Minister for Skills and Training, Brendan O’Connor.
Most observers across the sector that the Koala has engaged with would say rightly so.
Yesterday also saw the Skills and Training Minister put out a release on strengthening integrity for training organisations. With not one mention of the word “international” in the announcement it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that while the application is broad, it directly addresses concerns on Queen St, Melbourne.
The government announced it will be strengthening rules to ensure that people who own, operate and manage Registered Training Organisations meet higher and broader ‘fit and proper persons’ standards, an initiative designed to eliminate the minority of non-genuine operators that profit from students and fail to provide the standards of education and training that students deserve.
The changes, making the point they were agreed to by State and Territory Skills Ministers, will give VET regulators stronger powers to scrutinise people managing, overseeing and controlling Registered Training Organisations (RTOs).
The changes allow the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) more scope to keep substandard, unethical, dishonest or non-compliant practices out of the VET sector. Owners and senior managers at RTOs are required to comply with the ‘Fit and Proper Person’ requirements as a condition of registration.
An expanded list of matters will be considered when determining if a person is fit and proper, including a broad power for ASQA to consider conduct that suggests a deliberate pattern of unethical behaviour.
Other expanded powers include:
- allowing ASQA to consider instances where an offence was proven but no conviction was recorded;
- allowing ASQA to consider a persons management history and past breaches of registration
- expanding the types of evidence which can be considered that show false and misleading conduct by providers; and
- allowing ASQA to consider whether the provider has been found not to be fit and proper under an expanded range of federal and state laws, not merely in the VET sector.
The Koala wishes AQSA well.
International Education Valued by the Government
In each of the releases by the government, quotes attributable to Ministers make it clear that the government values international education. This is good.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said “International education is our fourth largest export – it’s essential that we maintain our global reputation for quality education. Our government has no tolerance for people who exploit students.” While Minister Clare said “International student numbers are almost back to where they were before the pandemic. That’s a good thing. International education is an extraordinarily valuable national asset.
This is positive.
The Koala congratulates the government’s action on taking the trash out.
The release on the action to end rorts in international education can be seen here.
The release on strengthening integrity for training organisations can be seen here.
