Following scandal after scandal, and a $3 billion Budget blow-out over four years, the Turnbull Government last night passed a bill through the Senate imposing stricter eligibility criteria for Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses, as well as capping student loans. From The ABC:
The Senate last night passed a bill scrapping the VET FEE-HELP program and replacing it with a new VET Student Loans program to begin on January 1.
“VET Student Loans will ensure students and taxpayers are protected, that skills shortages are addressed and that the reputation of the vocational education sector is restored,” Education Minister Simon Birmingham said.
“We have rebuilt the system from the ground up to restore confidence in the VET sector and reassure taxpayers that the rorts are over.”
The Opposition strongly supported the overhaul but failed in a bid to exclude state and territory-owned TAFEs from the new restrictions.
The new loans program will more than halve the number of courses eligible to about 350 and will make it harder for new operators to access the scheme.
It will also cap loans at $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000, depending on the course.
The Commonwealth will also have more powers to suspend and expel providers.
“A VET student loans program that has only quality providers operating within it, only delivering courses that are relevant to the employment outcomes for students and only charging fees that are actually efficiently priced to the cost of delivery to keep the costs down for those students,” Senator Birmingham said…
The Federal Government is facing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of losses from VET loans that will never repaid.
Good to see. The private VET sector has been riddled with rorting and waste, has produced poor educational outcomes, and has blown a huge hole in the Budget. Reform cold not come soon enough.
