Concerns student loan changes would kill beauty studies training

THE director of Hobart’s Papillon Beauty Academy is worried proposed student loan changes would kill beauty studies training in the state.

Papillon Beauty School director Estelle Davis is headed to Canberra to protest changes to the VET fee help scheme Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

THE director of Hobart’s Papillon Beauty Academy is worried proposed student loan changes would kill beauty studies training in the state.

Estelle Davis will join beauty training representatives from around Australia in Canberra tomorrow as they take concerns over changes to the Federal Government’s VET Fee Help scheme to Education Minister Simon Birmingham.

The changes are expected to be approved when parliament returns on Monday and come into effect on January 1.

Under the reforms, the VET Fee Help scheme will cease and a new student loan scheme will begin.

The student loans will be capped.

Ms Davis fears if the changes made business unsustainable, Tasmania could lose its only provider of diploma beauty studies. She said local students — of which the academy now has 20 — would need to move to the mainland to study.

“We try and keep our fees as low as we can but we are also a small business. I hope we get a good hearing in Canberra,’ Ms Davis said.

Ms Davis said the State’s tourism industry would also be impacted if the pool of potential staff to work in the salons and spas shrank.

“In Tasmania, we are approached by Saffire Resort, Cradle Mountain and other luxury hotels looking for staff,” she said.

The beauty industry has already petitioned Canberra saying the changes could cause inequality for the next generation of women’s education in Australia.

National beauty therapy education leader Cidesco Australia, of which Papillon is a member, says many excellent training organisations could lose teaching and administration staff and students.

Cidesco said the VET fee reforms were driven by a desire to drive out “cowboy” operators but had the potential to adversely impact on reputable Registered Training Organisations and their third parties.

“This approach is using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut,’ Cidesco said.

Mr Birmingham said the new program would provide greater protections for students and greater restrictions on educational institutions to weed out the sector’s unscrupulous providers.

Originally published as Concerns student loan changes would kill beauty studies training