No more throwing good VET money after bad

For those working in TAFE, particularly educators, one of the chief concerns over recent years is systemic change impacting on the quality of outcomes for students.

Long-standing readers of this column will possibly remember a now ancient article penned in 2015 regarding the differences between quality and Quality (with the capital Q) when it comes to VET. One of the failings of the VET system decried at that time was the increasingly short duration of training being forced on students by RTOs.

A recent study by the national regulator, the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), has examined the issue of short duration training. Entitled “A review of issues relating to unduly short training”, the report outlines that ASQA has been increasingly concerned by the incidence of providers advertising short durations for qualification completion. Indeed, a range of reports by ASQA into the provision of construction industry white cards, security training, child services and health and community care courses all raise concerns regarding unduly short delivery.

While the factors that affect quality outcomes in TAFE and VET are many and varied, ASQA states that “the impact of unduly short training is far-reaching, with significant consequences for learners, employers, RTOs, the community and governments, including financial, employability, and productivity impacts and individual, workplace and public safety risks.”
The scale of the problem identified is daunting, with examination of web advertising for 11,677 courses finding more than 25 per cent had proposed durations less than the minimum national requirements.

The report finds, somewhat antiseptically, the considerable flexibility of the competency-based training system to be, at best, a problem for RTOs confused and struggling to comply with the national standards. In the worst-case scenario, ASQA says, some RTOs maintain that the short duration of their courses is down to the high level of learner directed activity in the course design. These RTOs are apparently maintaining that “while the supervised activities may be of short duration, the bulk of the course is ‘self-directed’ and therefore the totality of the course duration is in line with the AQF requirements”.

Who would have thought it to be so?

The deliberate reduction of contact with students and maximisation of learner “self-direction” to maximise profit does not rate a mention. There is a vacuum in the report regarding profit-taking motives that amounts to wilful ignorance. Undoubtedly it is true that unduly short duration training is taking place, but it is dissembling to suggest it is down to RTO confusion about interpreting national regulation in the context of flexibility.

As reported in 2015, a private RTO “in its share float prospectus boasted of a $25 million profit being made on $50million revenue stream”. That sort of profit does not come about through confusion. It is the product of systematic exploitation of loopholes in the national system - loopholes that have existed for years.

ASQA’s recommendation that some of the loopholes be closed and consistent definitions and standards regarding delivery duration be applied are welcome. But it is little and late. Much reputational damage has been done and the quality providers have been forced to reduce student contact and to increase class size to compete for the ever declining dollars per annual hour of contact.

TAFE staff are trying to maintain the highest values of vocational education, to provide students with the grounding required to succeed. It is funding policy infecting the root of the vocational education, not “confusion” regarding course or delivery duration. Private for-profit RTOs have no problems understanding the flexibility arrangements of competency based training. Rather it is their clear understanding that has driven the problem.

To return to the conclusion made in 2015, government must act to ensure that public monies are being invested appropriately to purchase quality skills and knowledge for the population with the aim of achieving community, employment and industry policy outcomes.

To continue to throw good money after bad is profligate and irresponsible.

David Terauds                                                                                                                       TAFE Organiser

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 122 No 6, 25 August 2017, p22