The deregulation of the Victorian [vocational education and training] VET system which began in 2009 and the deregulation of VET FEE-HELP in 2012 has led to widespread and in some cases, extreme, exploitation of students - particularly those who are vulnerable members of society such as young people, people with low skills and literacy levels, people of low socio-economic status, people with disabilities, new immigrants and the unemployed. The deregulation has also led to widespread course fee increases, where by much of the fee was not directly related to delivery costs, but instead provided
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The deregulation of the Victorian [vocational education and training] VET system which began in 2009 and the deregulation of VET FEE-HELP in 2012 has led to widespread and in some cases, extreme, exploitation of students - particularly those who are vulnerable members of society such as young people, people with low skills and literacy levels, people of low socio-economic status, people with disabilities, new immigrants and the unemployed. The deregulation has also led to widespread course fee increases, where by much of the fee was not directly related to delivery costs, but instead provided huge profits for private providers. The incentive of large profits has led to many instances where the quality of the education and training delivered has been very poor. This has led to ill-equipped graduates and highly publicised instances of public safety concerns where 'qualified' employees did not have the adequate skills or knowledge to perform their jobs safely - for qualifications in childcare and aged care, this meant that children and elderly people were put at risk.
The current Federal Government has recently expressed an interest in nationalising the VET system in Australia, with the intent of deregulating fees and moving towards funding parity between public and private training providers (the draft plan is to be presented at the 2016 [Council of Australian Governments] COAG meeting in March). It is in light of these proposed changes - particularly the deregulation of the entire VET system in Australia, that this poster seeks to articulate how fee deregulation in the Victorian VET system, coupled with the deregulation of VET FEE-HELP led to things going so unexpectedly wrong - specifically how gaps and disconnections in public policy directly contributed to widespread system failure in Victoria. This will be partially based on an earlier policy analysis, published in the 'Publicus consilium: Deakin public policy review 2015' (Vocational education and training FEE-HELP: increasing equity, but for whom, the student or the government? pp.47-57) and incorporate further research and analysis. Key learnings and recommendations will be developed to outline how important it is to get not just the ideology, but the policy right when implementing deregulation of the essential service of education and training and ensure genuine equity of access for all students.
Published abstract.
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