VET & TAFE
ASQA lifts lid on scandals, ducks hard questions
A report on deceptive marketing practices in VET doesn’ t go far enough in addressing the key structural problems behind the deceptions. By John Mitchell
A
recent report on inappropriate marketing practices in the VET sector has opened the proverbial can of worms, but what will happen next? After reading the piece, prepared by the national VET regulator the Australian Skills Quality Authority( ASQA), fundamental questions remain about why these deceptive marketing practices flourished in recent times and whether the report’ s recommendations will help eradicate such deception in the future.
Before exploring these questions, it’ s important to note that ASQA deserves praise for compiling and releasing Marketing and advertising practices of Australia’ s registered training organisations – about the nature of unethical marketing practices – not least because the report shows the vast extent of the problem. As the basis of their research, ASQA investigated the websites of 480 relevant organisations’ marketing and advertising services. Of these websites, 420 belonged to registered training organisations( RTOs) and 59 to organisations that were not RTOs but were promoting VET services, for instance as brokers.
Startling finding The headline finding in the report was that“ up to 45 per cent of the RTOs were marketing and advertising misleading information”. This figure of 45 per cent is presented without the commonsense observation that it is a large number. Why the understatement? If 45 per cent of the websites of Australian universities or schools included misleading information, one could imagine the public outcry. For level-headed people, 45 per cent means the VET sector’ s overall reputation for quality is now in jeopardy.
Another disturbing finding was that“ a significant number” of organisations that are not RTOs are marketing services that may be in breach of the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 and / or the Australian Consumer Law and / or state and territory fair trading laws. Perhaps the possibility of legal action explains the bland way in which these organisations and their activities are discussed in the report.
Again the numbers are alarming: 55.9 per cent( 35) of these organisations did not identify the RTO with whom they have a relationship, leading to ASQA’ s muted comment that“ the practice
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