Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2015 is a step in the right direction; there is no question about that. It is an attempt to improve what is clearly the regulatory oversight of the vocational education sector. Having said that, it is also right to say that this bill does not go far enough in addressing the damage that has already been done to various individuals; nor does it propose to engage with the community to assist in minimising future problems in the VET sector.

I think everyone in this place knows that there are now too many examples of unscrupulous registered training organisations taking advantage of some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. The main priority of these organisations, as private training providers—and that is not all training providers, but the unscrupulous ones—is clearly profit driven: to enrol students and to take advantage of the VET FEE-HELP arrangements offered by the Commonwealth. Vulnerable members of our community, many very desperate to gain the skills and knowledge that they need to equip them for employment opportunities, are far too often left with large debts, no qualifications and possibly a dodgy qualification at best. Often they have nothing to show for the thousands of dollars that the government has contributed, and the debt that they have run up is likely never to be repaid, because they will never, in many instances, earn above the minimum threshold.

Given the extent of some of these practices operating amongst some of those private registered training providers, I would submit that the ACCC needs to be involved, because that would actually be a path by which to strengthen consumer protection and give greater advice on how people could redress their grievances in respect of these unsatisfactory practices that are emerging in the private VET sector. We also need to see a strict audit of VET FEE-HELP, as it has allowed many in the private provider areas of VET to take advantage of some of the desperate situations that many of the individuals who sign up as students find themselves in. There are now more than 4½ thousand private training colleges in Australia, and that number will continue to grow. More than $1.6 billion worth of taxpayers' money has been allocated to VET FEE-HELP, with 40 per cent of vocational loans expected never to be repaid.

At the same time as this is occurring, the quality of some of our VET courses is being very much degraded. We are now seeing a proliferation of shorter course lengths and larger class sizes, with little or no support for struggling students or those students who are labouring with various disabilities. I know that some private training companies are making huge profits, and sometimes those profits are made from cutting corners in quality. According to recent reports, some of the students, as the result of their training, are getting a paper qualification that has little or no apparent worth in the employment market, if they graduate at all. Coupled with that, we have seen state and federal Liberal governments cutting funding to the publicly funded TAFE colleges or the TAFE system. That is certainly not helping the situation. The Abbott government has taken $2 billion from the skills portfolio since the budget, closely following suit with what is being done by many of their state Liberal counterpart governments.

I can only speak for New South Wales—and some of the impacts on New South Wales TAFE are extraordinary. Since the last budget, we have lost 1,200 teachers—essentially, trade teachers—as well as support staff. They have already been made redundant. We have seen a drastic reduction in course sizes and face-to-face teaching between students and plumbers. For instance, plumbing has dropped from 864 hours as specified in the training package to 720 hours last year, and just 574 hours this year.

With little or no consultation with employers and no say on the part of the students, these changes are occurring and they are not welcome. They are certainly not welcome in industry and, for a student who is trying to get the best possible qualification possible for his or her career prospects, it is cutting corners.

Class sizes in New South Wales, for instance, in basic adult education can be as high as 30 to one, leaving little time for one to one between teachers and students. There is also a lack of support, as I indicated earlier, for struggling students—particularly, students with disabilities.

I have spoken many times in this place about my electorate being very multicultural. It is also an area with significant pockets of disadvantage. Regrettably, as a consequence, we have very high unemployment and extremely high youth unemployment. The opportunity for students to gain skills, which are transferable into employment, is very high on the agenda in electorates like mine.

We need to encourage people, particularly young people, to participate in further education, especially in the VET sector. There is currently a rollout of opportunities in the VET sector to exploit students. It does not help when we are defunding TAFE—maybe to make others more competitive, we are taking money out of the system, a system is universally respected. It also does not help, as a consequence of the changes, that TAFE fees are skyrocketing.

Fees are now being calculated per course, which makes it much harder to compare but, on average in New South Wales, they have increased by approximately 9.5 per cent. Coupled with the other changes—for instance, under this government, apprentices lost their Tools for Your Trade grants and New South Wales has increased the cost per course by an average of $500 per year—it is very difficult to even do source apprenticeships. There is a concerted attempt to restrict the ablity of TAFE to compete—some refer to it as making it a more contestable marketplace. For those who believe in qualifications with meaning, this is a repugnant attempt to downgrade what was—and I think still is—in many instances, a world-renowned technical and further education system by opening the doors to private training providers and allowing some very dodgy operators.

A recent story on the ABC shone the light on some unethical practices conducted during enrolment such as targeting individuals in areas of high disadvantage—areas like mine. The program also highlighted the lack of support to ensure that students actually graduate with the skills and knowledge that lead to employment opportunities.

It is simply a matter of signing people up, getting signatures on a piece of paper and moving on. These RTOs should not be allowed to transfer blame onto third parties used as recruitment agencies for their courses. They use third-party brokers to act on their behalf. So when things go badly and young people are ill-equipped to undertake the courses they have been signed up to, the RTOs blame the broker and say, 'It's got nothing to do with us, because we contracted that part of the operation out.'

Some colleges are known to prey on the most vulnerable members of our communities and use third parties or, in some cases, spruikers to promote expensive courses. Often, these courses are inappropriately offered to the long-term unemployed with very high and sometimes very specialised needs. Those who are targeted often have a low-skill base. English for many is a second language, and they have limited literacy ability. Again, this goes to whether a person has been appropriately recruited to undertake a particular course.

Many are not aware of the large debts they are signing up to. Often the lure of laptops, iPads and no up-front fees is enough for people to think; 'I'll put my name down for that.' These are vulnerable people who may not have a clear understanding of the costs they are running up or the costs that they are running up at public expense. As the ABC report indicated, many students do not have the basic literacy or numeracy skills necessary to complete this course and it has emerged that enrolment brokers have even undertaken the actual enrolment test on behalf of their potential students in order to ensure a sale is made.

There has been a sharp increase in various courses in the private sector. I have heard many speakers in this debate talk about what has occurred in the area of child care and the increase in certificate III and diploma courses in child care by some of the private RTOs. Child care centres that have employed some of the graduates from these colleges have found the majority are lacking in basic skills to do the requisite jobs required. What can we really expect when we are sometimes cutting year-long courses down to eight weeks, we are cutting teaching times down and we are making some courses—particularly in areas such as child care—simply a paper qualification? Yet, in terms of VET, vocational education and training, we should be equipping people with the skills and knowledge they need to undertake further employment opportunities.

There are also reports that some of the private training colleges are stealing curriculum information directly from TAFE and are failing to provide the necessary assistance and support to students. These are critical things in terms of trying to develop a person for future employment. They are things that we should not lose sight of. We need to ensure that, when we bring down legislation like this, it goes further than simply doing what this bill does. We need to put a stop to dodgy private providers, dubious sales methods to vulnerable people and the exploitation of taxpayer funded resources that are not being best used for the interests of the students or their employment outcomes. (Time expired)

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