VET & TAFE campusreview. com. au
Reform at the speed of scandal
As unprecedented troubles engulf the sector, the government’ s option to keep the pace of change methodical is vanishing rapidly.
By John Mitchell
All governments probably hope the general public never gains too many insights into a sector. That way, governments can calmly define the issues and propose the solutions. In the case of the VET sector, however, it’ s clear governments are now losing the battle to keep VET out of the media and out of the consciousness of the citizenry. The problem for the government in this new environment is that people are more likely to listen to radio hosts and investigative journalists than governments. In the early months of 2015, a series of scandals in the sector have played out in the national print, radio and television media that suggest the VET system is out of control and bureaucrats have lost the opportunity to reform at a pace and in a manner they and their political masters find comfortable. The federal government is nearly one year into a process it calls
VET reform, and whilst there has been a change in energy in that process in recent months, with the appointment of the assistant minister for education and training,
Senator Simon Birmingham, the process looks decidedly limp in comparison with explosive revelations in the media about VET calamities.
Doubtful premises The VET reform process dates back to April 3, 2014, when the minister for industry, Ian Macfarlane, chaired the inaugural meeting of the Council of Australian Governments( COAG) Industry and Skills Council, attended by state and territory ministers.
At that meeting, Australian Government ministers made a commitment to ensuring industry has the skilled workforce and operating environment it needs to boost the nation’ s productivity and increase international competitiveness.
Ministers attending COAG agreed on six objectives for reform, all of which sound like common sense and worthy objectives: 1. A national VET system governed effectively with clear roles and responsibilities for industry, the Commonwealth and the states and territories 2. A national system of streamlined industry-defined qualifications that is able to respond flexibly to major national and state priorities and emerging areas of skills need 3. Trade apprenticeships that are appropriately valued and used as career pathways 4. A modern and responsive national regulatory system that applies riskmanagement and supports a competitive, well-functioning market 5. Informed consumers who have access to the information necessary to make choices about providers and training that meets their needs 6. Targeted and efficient government funding that considers inconsistencies between jurisdictions or disruption to the fee-for-service market. The apparent logic of these objectives is now in doubt, following the flood of recent media exposés about VET. For instance, objectives 4 – 6 are based, respectively, on the premises that a market for VET can be regulated, that VET consumers can be protected and that government funding for the VET market will be used for its intended purposes.
The dissection of the collapse in the share price of Vocation Limited challenges these assumptions.
Can the market be regulated? Apparently the investigations of
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