Complaints about training providers

Vocational education contributes significantly to Australia’s economic, employment and social outcomes. ASQA, as the national regulator, is responsible for ensuring the quality and integrity of national qualifications issued by registered training organisations.

To help support quality and integrity in our sector, we encourage you to share your feedback or concerns with us. We accept information from all members of the community.

Student complaints and disputes with providers

The first step

If you have a complaint about your training provider, the first step is to submit feedback through their complaint process. Information about your training provider’s complaint process should be available in your student handbook or on their website.  

ASQA can not resolve disputes between students and training providers. Our regulatory functions allow us to collect, analyse, interpret, and disseminate information about vocational education and training. We do not have the legislative power to act as a student advocate.

Assistance with complaints and disputes with training providers

If you require assistance with resolving an issue with your training provider, we suggest you contact the National Training Complaints Hotline. The National Training Complaints Hotline is a referral service and will ensure that your complaint is handled by the most appropriate authority.

More support

If your complaint is related to issues such as refunds, issuance of certification or allegations of harassment, visit our More support—Students page.

Advising ASQA

ASQA has two feedback channels to accept information about the quality and integrity of our sector; Tip-off and Complaints.

Complaints

Complaints refer to the quality of training delivered as well as the services and business practices of training providers. To submit a complaint about a training provider, visit our asqaconnect website. There is more information on the type of complaints we receive on this site.

Tip-offs

Tip-off reports refer to concerns about the integrity of the vocational education and training (VET) sector. If you have suspicions or evidence of deceptive practices, unethical behaviours or illegal activities please submit a Tip-off report.

What happens next

Any information you provide will contribute to our ability to identify risks to quality and integrity in the VET sector. While we consider all information provided to us through our feedback channels, we do not investigate every report. We carefully assess the information to determine the most appropriate response. We may use the information to:

• inform future regulatory activities
• broaden the scope of current regulatory activities
• refer the matter to other government agencies
• keep a record of the information for future reference.

If you provide us with feedback, we usually do not advise you about actions we take or the outcome of any investigation.