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VET & TAFE
The government has recently taken bold action in reforming the VET FEE-HELP scheme following a spate of reports cataloguing some training providers ’ abuse of the system . Federation University VET sector researcher professor Erica Smith says a history lesson might help explain where the seeds of the latest controversies were sewn .
Smith first became involved with VET FEE-HELP at its introduction in 2007 – 08 , and has tracked its progress ever since . Perhaps the most notable change to the policy , she says , was the 2012 lifting of restrictions that had limited its application . Smith sat down with Campus Review to discuss the program ’ s origins and how its evolution has led to some unintended outcomes .
CR : What is your history with the VET FEE-HELP scheme ?
ES : When the policy was coming in , ACPET approached me and a colleague to see if we would do some professional development for them . One of the key tenets of VET FEE-HELP was that providers had to have a credit transfer arrangement in place .
So ACPET had already been working hard on the policy , of course , and in touch with the [ government ] departments .
When they realised their members needed more help in negotiating credit transfer arrangements , [ ACPET ] asked us to come in and help their members with some professional development . Because it was still a policy that was being figured out and because the [ legislation ] hadn ’ t gone through at that point , we got involved in discussions with the department as well . [ There were ] meetings with people from the department who were responsible for drafting and implementing the policy , as well as ACPET people . The department people , and ACPET , wanted to advise us on what they thought providers needed to know on the credit transfer front .
We had no official involvement beyond credit transfer advice but obviously we learned a lot about what was going on with the other provisions of VET FEE-HELP .
We certainly didn ’ t want people to be rushing into VET FEE-HELP just to be able to access the money for their students .
Your role was to help ACPET members understand their obligations under the legislation and how they could use its provisions ? The main purpose of our involvement was the credit transfer arrangement – we were asked to work with ACPET on figuring out what might be in it . We were given advice by officials from the departments about what they felt providers needed to know and then we set off on a road trip around Australia , delivering this to packed houses in capital cities – people keen on knowing how to do it .
Obviously they wanted to be able to access VET FEE-HELP and they knew they had to learn how to organise credit transfers . At a lot of the workshops , there were TAFEs as well as private providers , so it certainly wasn ’ t just a private provider interest .
What kind of advice were you giving at that stage ? I remember one of the first slides we had in our presentation was along the lines of ‘ Don ’ t do this unless you have the expertise to deliver the qualification ’.
Until we had the systems , we certainly didn ’ t want people to be rushing into VET FEE-HELP just to be able to access the money for their students .
Our feeling was unless people had the expertise and the particular description area they shouldn ’ t be considering it . We knew the highereducation providers wouldn ’ t consider credit transfer unless they could see that the RTO had the expertise in the area .
So we gave them a lot of advice because negotiating credit transfer is a difficult thing and universities are notoriously difficult organisations to get the handle on how to approach , and every university is different .
At that time [ pathways ] were the big debate in tertiary education – at the time of the Bradley Review and all of those other things – so everyone was trying to encourage them .
You ’ ve said previously that whilst the reason for the credit transfer requirement was not necessarily to deter sharp practice , but rather to encourage movement of students between VET and higher education , that it clearly served the function of restricting numbers and maintaining quality . Could the removal of these requirements have contributed to the rise of so-called unscrupulous training providers signing up new students under VET FEE-HELP despite many having limited prospects of completing their courses and so ending up with huge debts ? Exactly . And presumably to providers entering the market just to access the government funding when they haven ’ t got any discipline background – which is exactly what we were warning against .
In a sense [ credit transfer ] probably worked [ in encouraging pathways ], to a limited extent , but there could be other ways of encouraging pathways .
That debate has now gone off the boil anyway . There ’ s little discussion of pathways now , it seems .
Given all the controversy that has been kicked up around VET FEE- HELP , in the last 12 months especially , why have this credit transfer mechanism and its removal a few years ago not been the centre of more discussion ? It could be just a case of short memories .
In Victoria , it was removed several years before [ it was in the rest of the country ] so … some people have probably almost forgotten about it . And maybe it is that people don ’ t want to remind the public that the provision was there , in case it gets reinstated .
There could also be legitimate reasons . Say if you ’ re a good provider accessing your VET FEE-HELP [ and it is working well ].
Whatever the case , it ’ s a bit surprising , and the minister has brought out , or enacted , some new measures recently , which I think are good .
In a system where everyone ’ s behaving themselves , you shouldn ’ t have to do some of those things and ASQA has got enough work to do without worrying about VET FEE-HELP rorting on top of everything else .
I know you can ’ t close the stable door after the horse has bolted so it would be hard to reintroduce the credit transfer requirement but maybe there ’ s something else they could do . n
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