TAFE SA acting chief Alex Reid to have answers for 1300 students caught up in course scandal

STUDENTS are likely to learn next week if they will be forced to do new tests or training as TAFE narrows in on the exact problems with their courses and form a plan to fix them.

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STUDENTS are likely to learn next week if they will be forced to take new tests or training as TAFE SA determines the exact issues with their courses and forms a plan to fix them.

Speaking exclusively to The Advertiser a day after taking over the state-run training provider, acting chief executive Alex Reid, right, was confident few of the 1300 students caught in the blunder would ultimately be negatively affected.

Senior TAFE SA staff held an all-day meeting on Thursday with representatives from the Australian Skills Quality Authority to pore over the implications of the complex report ASQA released on Monday that banned new enrolments in 14 courses found to be below-par.

Ms Reid said all potentially affected students had been contacted, and the question marks remaining over many could be removed without new training or tests.

TAFE SA was developing “student by student” plans to get studies back on track.

Interim TAFE chief executive Alex Reid at Adelaide TAFE headquarters. Picture: Tait Schmaal.

“Students are the organisation’s No. 1 priority,” Ms Reid said. “They have had appropriate training, I believe. The impact, if there is an impact on any student, is quite specific to that course and unit of competency that the audit referred to (in the report).

“If they are affected at all, they’re not affected uniformly. “I would hope to have a stronger answer to that next week, (but) I may not have a complete and total answer.

“I am confident that no student is going to be negatively affected through this.” Ms Reid said many of the problems were “a relatively minor level of non-compliance at the unit level” and could be fixed by showing ASQA more evidence of valid tests and teaching.

TAFE SA has already cleared more than 300 students who were first thought to have their qualifications at risk, after discussions with ASQA about the specific impact on their courses.

Ms Reid was unable to estimate how many students may have to return to complete their studies, or who could be cleared just by showing new paperwork to ASQA.

The revelation that all of the 16 courses audited by ASQA were found to have problems, and Higher Education and Skills Minister Susan Close’s admission there’s “highly likely” to be problems with others that have not been checked, has sparked calls to review all courses.

Ms Reid said such a move would be logistically complex and take “many years”.

However, she said a review commissioned by Dr Close would help get to the bottom of what went wrong and potentially trigger targeted examinations of other courses.

“Absolutely, we are searching for the answer to that question,” Ms Reid said. “We will answer that question. It was surprising to many of us that the remediation and all of the effort that was the response (to earlier ASQA warnings) ... had not resulted in high levels of clearance.”

TAFE also intends to start an “intense” new round of talks with students, staff and industry next week as it attempts to restore severe reputational damage inflicted this week.

Ms Reid, who took the job after former chief executive Robin Murt quit this week when the scandal broke, downplayed the risk enrolments next year would fall.

But she said “a very large part of the task that I’ve been set” was to rebuild public confidence that had “slipped significantly” because of the crisis.

“This organisation needs to take stock of what’s happened, and that’s exactly what the board and I are doing,” she said.

Ms Reid was previously deputy head of the State Development Department.

PAGE 44: Daniel Wills

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