The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has supported the government’s broader skills and training strategy, frameworks and initiatives to improve tertiary education outcomes, including the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia, the National Skills Agreement, the review of the Australian Qualifications Framework and reforms driven through the Universities Accord. We are highly supportive of the government’s focus on reducing financial barriers to education and training.

However, we oppose legislating Fee-Free TAFE as an enduring feature of the vocational education and training (VET) system. As a principle, programs such as this should not be set by legislation. Rather, they should be part of a normal budget and policy setting process which identifies the problems that need to be addressed and the most effective and sustainable solutions.

Fee-Free TAFE is a policy lever to increase VET commencements and support disadvantage cohorts. It is too early to assess the impact of Fee Free TAFE on students, the VET sector and the labour market. We are concerned about the use of legislation to prematurely hard-wire this policy. We are also concerned the government has not allocated funds to this Bill.

We offer recommendations to evaluate and modify the Fee-Free TAFE policy to ensure both its effectiveness and that it provides value for money, in lieu of legislation.

• Undertake comprehensive review of the Fee-Free TAFE program to ensure it is fit-for-purpose and provides value for money
  
  • The review should be undertaken prior to any proposal to legislate this policy.
  • VET data should include a tag for Fee-Free placements to enable analysis by NCVER.
  • The analysis should include why students are not completing courses, and proposals to lift completion rates, particularly in sectors in demand.
• Redesign Fee-Free TAFE to put the student, not the provider, first. This will encourage competition, improve system-wide performance and ensure better value for money
  
  • ‘Fee-Free VET’ should include private and community RTOs to ensure Australians have access to free courses from the best providers for their course of choice. This is essential in regional and rural Australia where TAFE has a limited footprint, and for specialised, industry-focused courses that are primarily delivered by private RTOs.
  • Fee-Free VET places should be allocated based on student demand.
  • Government should develop a ‘Table A’ list of providers, akin to the Table system in higher education, and make ‘Fee-Free VET’ placements available to these providers. ASQA could manage the Table A list as part of their regulation and integrity oversight of the VET sector.
• Target Fee-Free places to disadvantaged and priority cohorts only, such as a Fee-Free TAFE Concession
  
  • Narrowing the student applicability of the policy would save costs in a tight fiscal environment and improve this policy’s value for money.
  • Fee-Free providers should receive additional resources to support diverse and priority cohorts to ensure they have good educational and employment outcomes.

Read our full submission here.