National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2019
16 December, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2019

The National Vocational Education and Training regulator Amendment Bill 2019 has been lodged in the senate.  The proposed amendments are intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the ASQA’s regulation of the sector. The changes strengthen registration requirements, modernise information and data sharing and improve the administrative efficiency of the NVETR Act. Key reforms […]

Read More
ASQA’s slash and burn approach on Registered Training Organisations
3 December, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

ASQA’s slash and burn approach on Registered Training Organisations

  An approach that is not very well thought out can cause significant knee jerk reactions. This is exactly what we all are experiencing from ASQA. The poor implementation and monitoring of VET FEE-HELP scheme and the way a few private and public organisations took advantage and rorted the funding is still causing significant nightmares […]

Read More
Victims of ASQA: The Real stories (Part – 1)
3 December, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Victims of ASQA: The Real stories (Part – 1)

In this section we explore stories of how a regulatory body is destroying Australia’s education and training sector, the livelihood of people and causing immense stress and loss to the individuals working in the training organisations. Our first guest in this series is Brett Hilder.  Brett Hilder is a businessman with extensive experience drawn from […]

Read More
Has the Australian Skills Quality Authority taken Australia back 30 years?
3 December, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Has the Australian Skills Quality Authority taken Australia back 30 years?

The effects of the VET regulator’s actions on our industry and Australia’s reputation with regards to innovative learning has been detrimental to what is internationally seen as best practice.  The attitude towards learning methods that are applied outside traditional face-to face classroom based training have put our education system at risk.  We are not reaching […]

Read More
Where are we going and why are we here?
18 November, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Where are we going and why are we here?

If you have followed the recent discussion on social media ASQA’s practices, RTO closures, TAFE non-compliance, rorting of government funding (by now this is historical data being republished) it is one thing that stands out; students are not part of the discussion. How did we arrive where we are at this point in time? ASQA […]

Read More
Is natural justice or procedural fairness possible with the current set up of ASQA?
18 November, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Is natural justice or procedural fairness possible with the current set up of ASQA?

We have evaluated how fair and transparent the internal workings of Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) is. Where can an RTO go to complain and seek justice? How effective are the “external avenues”?  ASQA’s auditors on the day of the audit  Please note: ASQA has engaged some very professional officers and auditors as well and […]

Read More
Concerns about the competency levels of Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) officers and auditors
18 November, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Concerns about the competency levels of Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) officers and auditors

The VET industry has some serious concerns regarding the competency of ASQA’s officers and auditors. We would like to look into this with some facts, records and figures.  Qualified auditors with Senior VET Experience – are they qualified enough? Unfortunately, the regulatory body has moved away from recruiting officers with a background in the education […]

Read More
Financial Viability Risk Assessment (FVRA) tool has changed again, version 3.1.
18 November, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Financial Viability Risk Assessment (FVRA) tool has changed again, version 3.1.

The financial viability risk assessment (FVRA) tool has been changed again by ASQA to make it more user friendly. The latest change was implemented on October 4, 2019. The changes have been made to make the FVRA tool more user-friendly and in cases where it is incomplete, provide additional guidance to identify items missing. The […]

Read More
ASQA has changed the rules for purchase and sale of RTO’s
18 November, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

ASQA has changed the rules for purchase and sale of RTO’s

Australian Skills Quality Authority has made it crystal clear that “Registered training organisations (RTOs) and Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS) providers are not permitted to transfer their registration from one legal entity to another. However, where a change of company shareholdings occurs, but the ABN/ACN of the entity registered with […]

Read More
Beware of FAKE certificates and unregistered providers
18 November, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Beware of FAKE certificates and unregistered providers

ASQA published the following media release on October 4 2019:  ASQA is aware that unfortunately, there are unqualified organisations issuing fake certificates in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. Whether you are a student signing up for a course in VET or a business seeking a training provider for your employees, make sure to […]

Read More
Updates to USI transcript for closed registered training organisations
18 November, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Updates to USI transcript for closed registered training organisations

Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) published the following news on October 4 2019:  As part of a collaboration between the Australian Department of Education, ASQA and the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), ASQA is now able to upload the academic results from closed RTOs to students’ Unique Student Identifier (USI) transcripts outside the […]

Read More
Unpacking ASQA audit reports and files (Part 4)
18 November, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Unpacking ASQA audit reports and files (Part 4)

This is part 4 of a series. We are referring here to cases from different audits conducted by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA). 1. Units made compliant, qualifications become non-compliant ASQA making decisions, where individual units were made compliant but qualifications including the very same units were made non-compliant.  When we read auditor’s response […]

Read More
Unpacking ASQA audit reports and files (Part 3)
1 October, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Unpacking ASQA audit reports and files (Part 3)

Let’s look into what is actually going on in the audits and ASQA practices. This is part 3 of the ongoing series. We are referring here a number of cases from the different audits conducted by the Australian  Skills Quality Authority (ASQA).  1. ASQA officers justifying their statements using information that contradicts all documented and […]

Read More
The implications of ASQA being moving to a full cost recovery agency
1 October, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

The implications of ASQA being moving to a full cost recovery agency

ASQA and TEQSA are required by the Australian Government to transition from partial cost recovery to full cost recovery by 2020-21 making charging activities more consistent with the  other areas of Government and Australian Government Charging Framework.  Currently, neither regulator recovers the full cost of their regulatory operation or the full cost of legislative activities. […]

Read More
How will ASQA move from its current practices?
1 October, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

How will ASQA move from its current practices?

Pic: Courtesy @edissuesaus  Note: The pic includes the famous saying of Ex-Chief Commissioner, Australian Skills Quality Authority in the Independent Tertiary Education Conference, Itec 2019 that held on 21-23 August 2019 at Marriott Surfers Paradise, for more information, please refer https://itec19.com.au/program/program/   Yes, you heard it right. The chief commissioner of Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) has […]

Read More
RTO experiences with ASQA from the front line-Part 2
1 October, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

RTO experiences with ASQA from the front line-Part 2

We are continuing to share the RTO experiences from the front line with the current regulatory body of vocational education and training, Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA). 1. Completely unjust and untrue grounds used by Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) for RTO rejection    2. No exit meeting with the RTO, no information regarding where […]

Read More
A potential audit of the Australian Skills Quality Authority by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO)
1 October, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

A potential audit of the Australian Skills Quality Authority by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO)

The Australian National Audit Office is the national auditor for the Parliament of Australia and the Government of Australia. It reports directly to the Australian Parliament via the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate.  ANAO has scheduled a potential “performance audit” of Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) for its […]

Read More
VET ministers announce changes to the Australian Skills Quality Authority
1 October, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

VET ministers announce changes to the Australian Skills Quality Authority

  Sharing the most recent announcement from the Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business and The Hon Steve Irons MP, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education, Training and Apprenticeships. The Australian Government today announced reforms to the agency responsible for regulating the vocational education and training sector,  the Australian […]

Read More
Unpacking ASQA audit reports and files (Part 1)
18 September, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Unpacking ASQA audit reports and files (Part 1)

Let’s look into what is actually going on in the audits and ASQA practices. We are referring here a number of examples from the audits conducted and the matters discussed in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal by the Australian  Skills Quality Authority.  1. ASQA Auditor considering online documents on a Google drive as “Student Portal” and […]

Read More
Conducting validation in your training organisation
18 September, 2019

Sukh Sandhu

Conducting validation in your training organisation

 What is validation? Explanation: Checking that the assessment tools, methods, judgement, evidence and processes to ensure that the training product meets: Principles of Assessment – i.e. valid, reliable, flexible and fair Rules of Evidence – i.e. valid, authentic, current and sufficient The judgment made by the trainer/assessor is benchmarked* with colleagues or industry experts There […]

Read More