ASQA Update - December 2022
Welcome to the December ASQA Update
As the year draws to a close, I am inspired to see the work showcased by the winners and finalists of the 2022 Australian Training Awards. It is clear we have a vibrant, diverse and innovative sector, and I congratulate the individuals and businesses, particularly, the Registered Training Organisations – who were recognised for their quality practice in this year’s awards.
It has been another incredibly busy year for ASQA and the sector alike. While certainly not without its challenges, 2022 has seen our nation begin to emerge from the pandemic and our sector very much at the centre of government’s ambitious plans to build a bigger, better trained and more productive workforce.
Delivering on government priorities requires a responsive and forward-looking VET sector with the capability to meet skills demands through the provision of quality VET – and a national regulator that maintains safeguards and capably supports the sector to deliver improvements and quality outcomes. We know that to do this requires a range of approaches to educate and support sector improvement whilst also curbing and deterring unacceptable conduct through our regulatory controls and sanctions.
Our respective achievements in 2022 provide much confidence in this regard. This year was characterised by, among other things, a range of measures that go to supporting the capability of the sector through a focus on self-assurance and excellence in training outcomes. Students, industry, the community, and governments expect providers to comply with their obligations and have mechanisms in place to ensure that they are meeting relevant standards at all times, not just when they are interacting with the regulator. This is a core part of a provider’s best business practice and is central to maintaining and improving quality VET.
That is why ASQA’s approach to self-assurance is to apply best practice regulation and partner with stakeholders to promote sector capability for systemic monitoring, evaluation and continuous improvement of outcomes under the relevant standards.
This year we further refined our risk-based and data-driven approach to identifying and managing regulatory risk, clearly signalling to the sector the risk priorities that are seeing focused investment and regulatory effort across our education, monitoring, compliance and enforcement activities, using the full breadth of our regulatory tools.
We continued to encourage providers to examine and manage these and other priority risks within their own businesses. Through all our regulatory interactions with the sector, we placed greater focus on the practices and behaviours of providers, and their systems for assuring and improving quality training. 2022 has shown us that we are making progress.
Just under two-thirds of providers told us that they are systemically monitoring and evaluating their systems and processes and using the outcomes of evaluations to continually improve their training and assessment strategies and practices – a very encouraging result at this early stage of the quality assurance and continuous improvement journey.
A significant proportion of providers who had findings of non-compliance achieved a return to sustained compliance because they understood and remedied where they were falling short in meeting their regulatory obligations – and were able to demonstrate they had the systems and governance in place to maintain compliance and improve their operations. Where this was not the case ASQA used a range of escalating regulatory tools to ensure compliance.
In this edition, we also provide an update on our priority work to address risks in delivery to international students including in collaboration through a multi-agency taskforce.
While the maturity journey for ASQA and the sector continues, we are looking to the future with confidence as we continue to build upon the achievements of this year.
With the end of year only weeks away, on behalf of everyone at ASQA, I wish you a safe and happy New Year.
We look forward to continuing to work with you to ensure the quality VET in 2023.
Stay safe and well,
In this edition
- ASQA presents at VELG National VET Conference 2022
- Stakeholder Liaison Group (SLG) Meeting Communique
- In case you missed it: Release of the draft revised RTO Standards for consultation
- Addressing risk in delivery of VET and ELICOS to international students
- NCVER and ASQA working closer together to streamline reporting compliance
- Fairness in Written Agreements Between International Students and Australian Education Providers
- Revised forms for course accreditation applications
- Upgrade: asqanet portal
- Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) FAQs published
- Holiday period office closures
and more