ASQA Bill passes Parliament – changes to protect students and improve quality

Vocational education and training (VET) legislation designed to protect vulnerable students, take action against non-genuine providers, and ensure improvements in quality vocational education and training has passed Parliament, with changes which may impact the broader early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector. 

The amendments to the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act grants the Australian Skills and Quality Authority (ASQA) greater powers, including:

• automatically lapsing the registration of registered training organisations (RTOs) that have not delivered training and assessment for 12 months
• preventing new RTOs from expanding their scope of registration within the first 24 months of their registration
• providing the Minister for Skills and Training with the power to direct ASQA to not accept or process initial applications for RTO registration for a period of up to 12 months
• clarifying provisions relating to false and misleading advertising of an RTO’s operations
• increasing maximum penalties by five times
• extending the period for ASQA to conduct internal reviews to 120 days
• allowing ASQA to consider the order in which to process initial applications for registration.

The changes address findings in the Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia’s Visa System in relation to high-risk training providers, and directly implement recommendations from the Braithwaite Review of the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act.

More detail about these changes and how they affect VET providers is available here.