VET & TAFE
campusreview.com.au
Give industry
a chance
V
As the dust
settles on the
government’s
proposed
changes to
VET-FEE HELP,
we should be
reminded of the
need for proper
consultation prior
to broad reforms.
By Jon Lang
20
ET-FEE HELP, Australia’s vocational loans
scheme, has always typified my idea of the
Aussie value of a fair go.
Upon its introduction in 2008, the VET
sector welcomed its own inclusion into a
government-funded loan system that had previously
been available only to higher-education providers.
Removing initial cost barriers for students essentially
took away the socioeconomic impediments to
education. A fair go for all. Or so it seemed.
Fast-forward eight years and the system is now
undeniably broken.
Abysmal completion rates and predatory sales
tactics have injured business confidence in the sector
and diminished the value of courses. Skyrocketing
fees have been charged for courses neither
completed nor resulting in jobs. Government funds
have not been paid back. The program has become
completely unsustainable from a budget perspective.
The actions of a few dodgy players have caused
chaos for the industry at large.
As the need for reform becomes critical, there is
also a need for caution – a lesson we can learn from
the recent greyhound racing debacle in NSW, which
resulted in an embarrassing backflip for Premier Mike
Baird. All-encompassing changes enforced brazenly,
without proper consultation and without allowing the
industry the chance to clean up its own act, punish a
whole industry for the actions of a few.
As the host of Australia’s Courses and Careers
Show on 2GB, Danny Bielik, recently stated about
the changes: “We’re setting ourselves up for
more failure.”
So what, then, might be a more reasonable solution?
STEMMING THE BLOOD LOSS
It’s obvious that something must be done to stem the
hemorrhaging of government funds, from $25 million
in 2009 to a staggering $3 billion in 2016.
It’s my opinion, however, that changes already
made in December 2015 to ban irresponsible sales
tactics and increase educational entry requirements
may already have resulted in as much as a 30 per cent
reduction in cost, if one were to crunch the numbers.
And had consultation ensued, it would probably have
revealed that few training providers have reached
their funding cap since the changes, as a result
of their effectiveness.
Instead, it appears we’re ploughing ahead with
additional, much more drastic changes, without
assessment of the impact of the original reforms.
The concern here is collateral damage: uninformed,
hastily enacted changes risk inflicting new wounds on
the students the industry exists to serve.
Looking to the wider vocational industry itself, the
ongoin