Following scandal after scandal, federal education minister, Simon Birmingham, has declared war on dodgy private vocational education and training (VET) providers, vowing to “smash” their business models. From The SMH:
Education Minister Simon Birmingham will announce on Thursday that he is finalising a major overhaul of the government’s scandal-plagued vocational loans scheme to come into effect next year.
Senator Birmingham’s speech offers the clearest sign yet of the government’s policy direction since it placed an emergency freeze on the HECS-style loans scheme last year. Legislation will be presented within months and the new system will begin in 2017.
…the government is examining a staggered system of loan limits which recognises the different costs of providing courses such as agriculture and childcare.
Senator Birmingham says the key questions he is considering are:
Which operators are of sufficiently high quality and repute to qualify for subsidies.
Which courses are sufficiently likely to lead to employment and warrant government support.
How can student numbers best be controlled.
What costs are reasonable for different courses…Fly-by-night private colleges with high drop-out rates are set to lose access to taxpayer subsidies…
Left-field courses with poor job prospects such as performing arts and art therapy are likely to be ruled ineligible for government funds.
The Grattan Institute’s recent report, entitled HELP for the future: Fairer Repayment of Student Debt, highlighted in all its hideous glory the escalation in HELP loans and doubtful debts:
With much of the rise in bad debts coming from the private VET sector, which has been subject to widespread rorting.
A few months back, The ABC also reported that the federal government was preparing to write-off billions of dollars of higher education loans on the back of a blow-out in bad debts relating to the scandal-ridden VET sector.
The Turnbull Government’s crack-down on the private VET sector could not come soon enough. The sector has been riddled with rorting and waste, has produced poor educational outcomes, and has blown a huge hole in the Budget.
