News
Vocational Education and Training Reform
Background
The Council of Australian Governments has agreed to establish a national regulator for the VET sector. The regulator will be responsible for the registration and audit of registered training providers, and accreditation of courses, and will be established under Commonwealth legislation.
A national standards council will also be established to provide advice to the Ministerial Council for Tertiary Education and Employment on national standards for regulation, including registration, quality assurance, performance monitoring, reporting, risk, audit, review and renewal of providers, and accreditation of VET qualifications.
Victoria and Western Australia will continue to regulate providers operating in their States and will enact legislation to mirror the Commonwealth legislation. On a national basis, all providers wishing to operate in more than one jurisdiction or enrol international students in post-secondary educational institutions will be registered through the national regulator.
The New National VET Regulator
On 7 December 2009, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to establish a national regulator for VET. This announcement is, in part, due to requests from the Australian VET sector, for nationally consistent regulatory arrangements. The COAG communiqué states that, the new regulator will be responsible for the registration and audit of registered training providers, and accreditation of courses, and will be established under Commonwealth legislation. Victoria and Western Australia will continue to regulate providers operating in their States and will enact legislation to mirror the Commonwealth legislation. On a national basis, all providers wishing to operate in more than one jurisdiction or enrol international students in post-secondary educational institutions will be registered through the national regulator. This COAG decision was noted by Victoria and Western Australia.
Over the next 12 months, NARA will support the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and the State and Territory Registering Bodies to establish the national VET regulator. During this transition phase, NARA will continue operations as normal.
The COAG communiqué and the announcement can be found at:
www.coag.gov.au