Australian Government Consultation on unduly short courses and training product reform

In December 2017, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, the Hon Karen Andrews MP announced public consultations with VET stakeholders on the implementation of recommendations made by ASQA in the 2017 report on short courses, ‘A review of issues relating to unduly short training’. A discussion paper has also been released to support the consultations and public submissions to the process. The discussion paper outlines the reforms currently being undertaken by the Australian Government.

ASQA’s review made three recommendations:

• that the Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2015 be amended to include a definition of the ‘amount of training’ that focuses on supervised learning and assessment activities
• that training package developers be able to respond to industry-specific risks by setting mandatory requirements, including an amount of training
• that RTOs be required to publish Product Disclosure Statements that include the range of learning activities expected, including the amount of training, for each training product on their scope of registration.

Submissions to the public consultation processes will be open until 9 March 2018.