Australia’s VET system is, in general, well regarded domestically and internationally. However, there have been persistent concerns about the patchy quality of VET student outcomes.

The Business Council believes poor-quality assessment is primarily occurring due to poor provider behaviour. We believe the majority of providers are delivering training that meets the VET standards and that poor-quality providers are a relatively small subset of RTOs.  However, this subset of providers must be better managed to help restore industry and community confidence in VET.

Many of the discussion paper's options will simply address the ‘symptoms’ of poor-quality training, rather than addressing the problem. In the long term, these types of options will not lift the overall quality of VET assessment – if low-quality providers are removed from the sector, the vast majority of poor-quality assessment will cease. This will then allow government and the regulator to focus on legitimate providers who are not delivering high-quality assessment.

The Business Council’s submission urges the government to focus their response on ensuring all providers comply with the VET standards and Training Package requirements, by strengthening the regulator’s capacity to respond to possible breaches and its enforcement capability. It also notes that any reforms must be targeted to areas of poor performance, to ensure they will not increase the regulatory and administrative burden on all providers.

Download a copy of our submission here.