Consultation on unduly short courses ASQA report

February 23, 2018

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Review on unduly short courses

In June 2017, the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) released its strategic review on unduly short courses. The review found that the long-term quality of Australia’s vocational education and training (VET) sector is at risk. Unduly short courses in many cases led to learners not gaining the competencies specified in the training packages.

The review said that, ‘For more than 20 years Australia’s training sector has been competency-based rather than time-based. That is, if a learner can demonstrate that he or she has the required competencies then the learner is able to receive a formal qualification. However more needs to be done to address the risk of unscrupulous providers exploiting this flexibility where there is pressure to deliver short courses.’

Review recommendations

The review made three recommendations:
1. the Standards for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) 2015 be changed to include a definition of the ‘amount of training’ in supervised learning and assessment activities
2. training package developers be able to set mandatory requirements, including the amount of training
3. that RTOs be required to publish the range of learning activities expected, including the amount of training for each training product on their scope of registration.

Public consultation with stakeholders

In December 2017, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, the Hon Karen Andrews MP announced public consultations with vocational education and training (VET) stakeholders. This will be on both the implementation of the recommendations on unduly short courses and training product reform.
VET stakeholders are encouraged to provide submissions to the public consultation processes, which closes on 9 March 2018.
To support consultations, the department is hosting face-to-face consultation workshops in February and March 2018.

Dates, locations and registration information is available at www.ivvy.com.au/event/QKMENW.

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