Edition 78, May 2010

National VET reforms funded

National VET reforms funded in budgetThe Australian Government will invest $243 million over the next four years to transform Australia's vocational education and training (VET) system.

The funding will provide more Australians with greater access to high-level qualifications to advance their own careers and help strengthen the economy.

These reforms will provide employers with more confidence in the skills and qualifications of their employees, regardless of where they have been trained in Australia.

Employees will also be able to invest in their own education and training with an assurance about the quality and transferability of their qualifications. 

The reforms include:

  • an expansion of income contingent loans through the VET FEE-HELP program to help Australians to gain higher level technical and trade skills;
  • a Quality Skills Incentive scheme to lift the standards and performance of Australia's largest vocational education providers, including TAFEs;
  • the establishment and operation of the new National Vocational Education Regulator and Standards Council; and
  • A MySkills website linked to the new national regulator to provide greater transparency and robust comparable information for people when selecting a provider.

A National Entitlement to a Quality Training Place

The National Entitlement to a Quality Training Place means that all young people under 25 years would have guaranteed access to a course that enables them to get a first qualification or to lift their qualifications to the next level.

This will particularly assist around 364,000 young Australians who have not attained Year 12 or a Cert II qualification.

To establish the entitlement, each state and territory government will be offered the opportunity to use National Partnership Productivity Places Program funding from 2011-12 to boost their base VET funding and help meet the costs of this training guarantee.

As part of this offer, the Commonwealth will also invest $53.6 million over four years to provide greater access to income contingent loans (VET FEE-HELP) for higher level VET qualifications.

Expanding VET FEE-HELP will help more than 477,000 people access higher education through an income contingent loan.

In return, each jurisdiction will need to guarantee access for all young Australians to an accredited training place and provide a plan to extend this entitlement to other Australians looking to improve their foundation skills or undertake further training.

States and territories will also need to commit to the Commonwealth's quality and transparency reform agenda, including implementation of a Unique Student Identifier.

Quality Skills Incentive

The Federal Government will provide almost $130 million to lift the performance of Australia's vocational education system, which currently provides training and education to more than 1.7 million Australians.

For the first time, this Commonwealth investment will be used to drive specific performance benchmarks, raise the quality of teaching, lift student achievements and expand access to training, particularly for disadvantaged Australians and in areas where there are skill shortages.

Training providers will be required to negotiate performance targets prior to the implementation of the fund. A rigorous performance management framework will also ensure that the funding achieves better outcomes for students

The Quality Skills Incentive will start in the 2011/2012 financial year and be open to the 100 registered training organisations (RTOs) with the largest number of enrolments, including 59 TAFE institutes. These 100 organisations deliver approximately 95 per cent of publicly-funded training in Australia.

Transparency in the VET System

The Government will provide $4.1 million to develop MySkills, a website that will provide Australians with robust information to help them select a VET provider.

The website will be launched in July 2011 and will cover publicly-funded VET providers across the country.

Working in conjunction with the Unique Student Identifier, the MySkills website will take vital steps towards improving the accountability of service providers

MySkills will also be linked to the new National VET Regulator. The new National VET Regulator and Standards Council, as agreed by COAG will also benefit from a $55 million investment over four years.

The National VET Regulator will be responsible for the registration and audit of the vast majority of vocational education providers and will be operational from April 2011.

For more information visit http://budget.australia.gov.au/

 

This page was generated on 31 May, 2010