Inappropriate marketing and practices within the vocational education and training (VET) sector will be the subject of a strategic review being launched this week by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA). ASQA Chief Commissioner Chris Robinson said the regulator regularly received intelligence that some training providers were engaging practices that did not meet the training standards while others were marketing their training in a misleading way. “ASQA has been in operation for almost 18 months and our audit program and calls to our Info line (1300 701 801) have uncovered a number of inappropriate marketing and practices by training providers across Australia,” Mr Robinson said.
“For example, some training organisations have been advertising unrealistic timeframes for course completion, such as promises of completing
Certificate – level qualifications in a weekend. “Others are attempting to use online learning and assessment for courses that clearly and appropriately require face to face assessment.
“ASQA has also been made aware of training providers falsely advertising to be a registered training organisation (RTO), and inappropriately using the recognition of prior learning (RPL) framework. “As the national skills regulator, ASQA has established processes to deal with concerns about specific RTOs that come to its attention through the audits it conducts and the complaints it receives.
“This review will use this information to inform its findings, but the focus will be on systemic poor practice and appropriate actions to address poor practice, rather than the dodgy practices of individual RTOs.” Mr Robinson said a management committee had been established to oversee the review. The committee comprises representatives of the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees Association; Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy Union; Australian Industry Group & Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry; and the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science, Research & Tertiary Education.
For More go to: http://www.asqa.gov.au/verve/_resources/20121220_MR_Strategic_Review_Inappropriate_marketing.pdf