The awaited changes to VET Fee Help are here.
The Australian reports that today Federal Training Minister Simon Birmingham will announce a crackdown on aggressive recruitment practices among RTOs.
From the 1st of July, training providers will be banned from fining or charging “administrative’’ fees for students who decide to withdraw from a course of study before the census date. Training providers will also be banned from marketing courses as “free’’ or “government-funded’’.
The Australian has quoted Senator Birmingham…
- “We want every incentive for training companies to enrol students for the purest of reasons,’’
- “Some students are being enrolled for the wrong reasons: purely to access government-provided loans without providing quality training. Nobody should be taking out a VET Fee-Help loan for any reason other than undertaking high-quality training that will enhance their employment prospects.’’
- Students must be told they will have to repay their loan in instalments once they earn $54,126 a year. “It’s a loan and there is every expectation it should be paid back during the course of your working life,’’
We applaud Senator Birmingham’s stance on the matter and the changes being made. This simple yet effective change is likely to clean up some of the worst practices that we have seen across the sector with VET Fee Help over the past few years.
The team at AuditExpress are forecasting a significant increase to the regulation and scheduling of audits of both VET Fee Help RTOs and those RTOs with State based funding contracts in the 2015/2016 financial year. The time to check your compliance is now.
You can read the full Australian article here >>>
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/training-colleges-to-be-banned-from-fining-drop-out-students/story-e6frgcjx-1227413423177?login=1
You can read Senator Birmingham’s full press release here >>>
http://www.senatorbirmingham.com.au/Latest-News/ID/2748/Withdrawal-fees-banned-for-courses