The Federal Government today released the second tranche of its Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector reforms.
Speaking at the National VET Conference in Brisbane, the Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane said the reforms improve the system to elevate trades to the centre of the economy and focus on ensuring Australian workers are highly skilled and job ready.
Just one in two apprentices completes their training with up to 30 per cent quitting in the first year.
"Employer satisfaction and involvement with the VET system is decreasing and there’s too much churn and waste," Macfarlane said.
The Government has changed the way the regulator, the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) operates to cut excessive red tape for training providers.
"The best way to ensure training providers deliver high quality training is to let each RTO stand on its reputation – not fill out reams and reams of paperwork and jump through endless hoops," he said.
"At the moment training providers are required to constantly seek approval from ASQA before they offer new courses or make changes to the courses they are already delivering.
"The result is an excessive amount of red tape and too much time spent filling out forms instead of filling classrooms or workshops."
Macfarlane said ASQA should be a regulator, not a book-keeper.
The Government is also implementing measures to crack down on unscrupulous or misleading behaviour by ‘brokers’ who act as an intermediary between students and training providers.
The measures are part of the new standards for RTOs which begin in January.
At the end of the current contract period with the 12 Industry Skills Councils (ISCs) the government will move to a more contestable model for the development and maintenance of training packages.
"Current ISCs are welcome to tender under this new model along with new groups," Macfarlane said.
These reforms build on the first round announced earlier this week to introduce the Australian Apprenticeship Support Network and to run two pilot programs - the Training for Employment Scholarships program and the Youth Employment Pathways program.
