Labor have announced a reshuffle of their frontbench and in a bizarre move have split their Shadow Ministry by naming Kate Ellis as the Shadow Minister TAFE and Vocational Education and Training, and Senator Doug Cameron as the Shadow Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships.
Kate Ellis MP
Our new Shadow Minister for VET, (Kate) has come from a family of educators and small business owners, and her website overview would suggest that she is passionate about Education.
Senator Doug Cameron
Our new Shadow Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships (Doug) was born in Scotland, is married with two daughters and two grandchildren. [emaillocker id=”6291″] Doug was elected to the Senate in 2007 and has served as Shadow Minister for Human Services since 2013 (until this frontbench reshuffle). Prior to being preselected to run for the Senate, Doug previously served as the national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.
Kate entered parliament in 2004 as the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives, and became the Minister for Employment Participation and Early Childhood in 2010. In opposition, up until this reshuffle Kate has been the Shadow Minister for Education and the Shadow Minister for Early Childhood. Both Kate and Doug have historically supported and voted for both marriage equality and safe schools coalition which sounds promising.
Kate Ellis seems to be an active local MP and apparently mad fan of the Adelaide Crows… but we won’t hold that against her. Interestingly her husband David Penberthy, is news limited journalist and was former editor of both Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Adelaide’s Sunday Mail. He is now a breakfast show host on Adelaide’s Nova FM.
The VET sector is in need of change, in particular with regard to VET Fee Help. Rather than playing political games we are calling on both Shadow Ministers Kate and Doug to work with our Education Minister, Senator Birmingham and his Assistant Minister, Karen Andrews to deliver some much needed VET reform and policy changes to improve the quality of the overall VET sector.
The team at Audit Express look forward to engaging with the new Shadow Minister for VET and the new Shadow Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships on both policy and reform. We wish you both well in your new positions. We would also like to thank the outgoing Shadow Minister Sharon Bird for her passion of VET and her dedication to the overall sector – Sharon you have left big shoes for Kate and Doug to fill!
When ASQA became the (national*) regulatory body for the vocational education and training (VET) sector on the 1st of July 2011, the VET sector was sold the vision of Australia moving towards a true national VET system. Fast forward four years to 2015 and it is pleasing to see that there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel.
The opportunities associated with the Australian VET sector are endless. With the slowing Australian mining industry, the right education policy reform could see education rise to be our largest and most successful industry over the next 10 years.
There are an increasing number of opportunities in the VET sector, including: [emaillocker id=6291]
Global international students wanting to experience our reputable, quality education system both here in Australia and offshore in their home countries.
The ongoing demand to meet the skilling needs of our own nation
The opportunity to compete with NZ, UK and the USA education providers to meet the skilling needs of our neighbours across the wider Asian-Pacific region. This in itself is a multi billion dollar opportunity.
Senator Simon Birmingham has worked hard at this important piece of education reform that will strengthen our current fragmented and disjointed sector. It is also really pleasing to see that the Australian Council of Private Education and Training is also playing an active role in campaigning and lobbying for the much needed reform that our sector is crying out for across the nation.
AuditExpress look forward to continuing our work with ACPET in seeing this much needed reform passed through parliament in this term of government.
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… [emaillocker id=6291]
“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.
AuditExpress are proud sponsors of the ACPET #VICVETFORUM being held in Melbourne next Tuesday 9th June 2015. [emaillocker id=6291]
In preparation for the event be sure to get your Twitter & Instagram accounts ready. This is set to be a very interactive #VET forum that will involve a live stream for attending guests to interact and have their say throughout the day via their Twitter and Instagram accounts.
The following link is for the ACPET tweetbeam wall that will be used throughout the day for the events hashtag #VICVETFORUM.
All tweets and retweets will be populated here leading up to and on the day of the forum. This wall will be displayed live, allowing full interaction throughout the forum.
Be sure to include the #VICVETFORUM hashtag in your tweets and instagram posts about the forum and also tag: Senator Simon Birmingham – @birmo
ACPET – @ACPET_national
This is set to be an outstanding forum with the most impressive list of keynote speakers this year! We look forward to seeing you all there.
