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VET & TAFE delivered in less than six months, while the Australian Qualifications Framework( AQF) recommended duration for a Certificate III is one to two years.
“ The AQF benchmark equates to a volume of learning requirement of at least 1200 hours of delivery for a Certificate III, whereas almost three-quarters of the delivery of Certificate III in childcare was found to be 750 hours or less,” the review states.
Given that infants are the ultimate victims of inadequately trained childcare workers, this practice by dodgy providers of cutting corners can be described as fraudulent and unethical, if not immoral.
The ASQA’ s second major finding was that 74 per cent( 57) of the providers were not fully compliant with the required
national standards when they were audited in 2014.
Lest the readers of the report think there is a crisis in VET, however, the authors were quick to try to comfort them:“ The 57( 74 per cent) of RTOs that were not able to demonstrate full compliance with the standards at the initial audit were given a 20-working-day period to rectify their noncompliance. Some 33 RTOs were able to do so, bringing the total number of RTOs able to demonstrate full compliance by the completion of the audit process to 53( 68.8 per cent), with 24 RTOs( 31.2 per cent) not complying with all of the required standards.”
This is an unfortunate line of thinking. Implicitly, it is sending the message to all RTOs that it is OK if you are deemed not fully compliant at audit, as long as you fix the issues in 20 working days. In the case of childcare training, the clear message to providers is don’ t worry about fixing all your deficiencies, and don’ t worry about shortchanging the children whom your trainees will care for, just wait till you are audited and then use the grace period to cover over the cracks.
In the executive summary of the report, the authors were fastidious in describing the steps ASQA took in relation to the non-compliant providers, as if the authority’ s ability to follow a series of procedural steps were on trial. Where the report is less fulsome is in underlining the explosive finding that every RTO that was non-compliant had difficulties with assessment:“ In all cases where non-compliance was identified, the RTOs experienced difficulties in achieving compliance with the standard concerning assessment.”
Assessment is the bedrock of the VET competency-based system, which places the primary emphasis on the trainer assessing whether a person is competent. All the non-compliant providers in the ASQA study being deficient in relation to assessment amounts to a crisis for the VET sector nationally.
Given that infants are the ultimate victims of inadequately trained childcare workers, this practice by dodgy providers of cutting corners can be described as fraudulent and unethical, if not immoral.
RELAX, IT’ S A COMMON PROBLEM The report’ s authors tried to downplay this alarming revelation about assessment practices by saying the same finding emerged in the 2013 aged-care review and that the authority believes the finding probably holds true for all programs in VET. It was ham-fisted by ASQA to try to diminish the importance of the childcare finding by saying that poor assessment is common in the sector. A more honest statement would have been that assessment practice across VET is so poor the VET system is dysfunctional.
In another attempt to calm the nerves of readers, especially parents of small children, ASQA offered two supposedly soothing arguments – both less than persuasive.
First, the new standards for RTOs that commenced on April 1“ have considerably strengthened requirements around assessment”, they wrote. But this Campus Review column has previously pointed out that the new standards are still flawed, providing ongoing loopholes for rogue providers to exploit. Second, ASQA is confident that it will be able to“ better inform RTOs about what is required to meet the new standards”, presumably through its workshops. However, it seems fanciful to suggest that the 74 per cent of childcare providers who are non-compliant will suddenly get interested in attending an ASQA information workshop and improving their assessment practices.
Possibly to further calm the nerves of parents of young children, ASQA chose not to emphasise in the executive summary of its report that many trainers have not maintained their currency in the childcare industry. These trainers have little idea about what is happening now in the childcare industry. The authority also gave scant attention to its finding that many trainees are not given opportunities to learn in workplace environments. In other words, trainees are graduating without some exposure to, or sufficient experience in, childcare workplaces.
Oddly, the one paragraph in the executive summary of the report that comes close to admitting that the childcare report points to a crisis in VET is the final one, which cites two concerns of the authors. The first concern is misplaced, in expressing sympathy for employers of childcare trainees, without expressing overriding sympathy for young children or their parents.
The second concern“ relates to those RTOs that are trying to provide high-quality programs that are capable of delivering the skills and competencies required in a meaningful way – these RTOs are being faced with unfair competition( in terms of downward pressure, or the lowering of costs or prices to unrealistic levels) from those RTOs that are providing‘ cheap’ and unrealistically short training programs. This situation is threatening the long-term financial sustainability of the Australian training market,” the authors state.
The report raises more concerns than the two the authors summarise. There is, for example, the concern that ASQA is possibly being politically directed to prepare reports that will not embarrass key stakeholders and to withhold the release of its reports for long periods.
Sadly, the major issue the report raises is that infant children have been poorly treated by inadequately trained childcare workers in the four years since the Productivity Commission published its first report on shonky training in the sector. That mistreatment of children deserves an independent investigation. ■
Dr John Mitchell is a VET researcher and analyst. Go to: jma. com. au
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