Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to have an opportunity to contribute to this debate on the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Providers) Bill 2009. The importance of vocational education and training on an individual and national level cannot be overstated. I would like to pay tribute to the work of the ministers for education under the Howard government, the successive ministers who placed such a strong emphasis on ensuring that young people in Australia had an opportunity to enter into higher education rather than just fall off the edge, because I think the previous administration had put a lot of emphasis on university level study. While that is important, it is not for every young person. What our ministers did was to try to make sure that young people had a variety of opportunities to further their education, particularly in the vocational education and training system.

Clearly, with the growing demand in the Australian economy, more than ever before we need skilled workers who have furthered their education at either a university or a vocational education and training institution. There is an ongoing requirement that the government contribute towards ensuring that the needs of a skilled workforce can be met. A major part of this process is about ensuring that students are encouraged to attend a wide range of further education options. This process is ongoing and requires the constant diligence of government.

Things have changed quite a bit in terms of the skilling of our workforce. At one stage, government industries made up a substantial part of the training system that trained young people in apprenticeships and vocational education and training. That changed dramatically when a different tack was taken and many government industries were privatised or corporatised. It was then left to the private sector. It became clear to me when I came into the parliament in 1993 that there was an ever-increasing gap in the capacity of this country to find skilled workers to fill the many vacancies that opened up. Because we did not have a large number of people training through the apprenticeships and training systems that were offered by either the Public Service or government industries such as the railways, buses and airlines, nobody seemed to want to foot the bill for the training of young people. I think it is fair to say that there was a hiatus which, down the track, caused us considerable problems with workforce requirements. But I applaud the work that was done by the successive ministers for education—if memory serves me correctly, Minister Kemp, Minister Nelson and Minister Bishop—under the Howard government.

In 2007 the Howard government expanded the operation of FEE-HELP to extend the concessional loans to cover vocational education and training courses. Again, this is an indication of just how serious we were when we were in government to ensure that all young people had opportunities to further their education and training. The worthy object of this policy was to encourage greater participation in vocational education and training courses where the lack of FEE-HELP served as a deterrent to students. In the past, these might have been young people who went into apprenticeships or vocational training in government-owned enterprises.

The bill currently before us will refine this policy. VET FEE-HELP will allow full fee paying students who are enrolled in diploma, advanced diploma, graduate certificate or graduate diploma course access to FEE-HELP loans to cover the cost of their course fees. Where the student is undertaking a diploma or advanced diploma, their VET provider must have a credit transfer arrangement in place with a higher education provider. As with FEE-HELP for university students, the $80,000 maximum loan is repaid once the student reaches the income threshold. Students do not have to pay for the VET courses upfront. They are able to pursue their vitally important education and they only have to pay for it once they have entered into the workforce.

Clearly, when the Howard government embarked on the mission to make VET courses more accessible, it was recognised that there would be administrative kinks that would need to be ironed out. As the VET sector provides units, modules and courses far wider in scope than those offered by tertiary institutions, the first challenge is to determine which of those units FEE-HELP should cover. As a consequence of this bill, only those units that are essential to the course being undertaken will be covered by a loan arrangement. Any units taken in excess of the requirements of the course will not be covered. VET providers will be able to offer loans immediately after their notice of approval has been registered rather than having to wait, as they currently do, for the disallowance period to cease. This will streamline the processing of applications from VET providers to offer FEE-HELP and will thus enable students to have earlier access to financial assistance for their higher-level VET courses. The minister’s discretion to revoke approval of a VET provider is also confirmed.

This is a positive continuation of a policy designed to encourage higher level learning with vocational education and training providers. But, as I have noted, there needs to be continual work done to ensure that opportunities are available for all Australians to pursue their education at tertiary institutions or VET institutions. Despite all the talk about the education revolution, what we continue to see is that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are prevalent in VET and tend to seek low-level qualifications. This means that the measures being discussed today will have very little effect on the students who need the assistance most. Much more needs to be done to create better pathways to encourage students to continue their education in higher-level diploma and advanced diploma courses and, in some cases, at university.

Leesa Wheelaham, a senior lecturer in adult and vocational education from Griffith University has noted that ‘VET needs to provide a climbing framework to higher qualifications, particularly in higher education’. Ms Wheelaham goes on to note that the ‘Labor policy emphasises the need to equip the Australian people to engage in lifelong learning, but it does not yet have the lifelong learning policy to support this’ ambition. I have added the word ‘ambition’.

It would seem that, if the so-called education revolution is to ever get off the ground, establishing a climbing framework for higher education is essential. Replicating TAFE by installing trades training centres in senior schools across Australia seems to be a hopelessly misguided policy when this money could be better utilised to encourage continual engagement in education across the Australian workforce. If the youth of Australia are to see any benefit to their education system, it will be that the accessibility of VET courses continues to be expanded before them and that the policy disincentives to advance their education are promptly removed.

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