Coronavirus: ‘Moment has come’ for VET reform

The Productivity Commission is calling for a radical overhaul of the vocational education sector to boost its performance.

Productivity Commissioner Jonathan Coppel was one of the authors of the report.

The Productivity Commission is calling for a radical overhaul of the vocational education sector to boost its performance, reduce waste, be fairer to students and position it to play a key role in Australia­’s recovery from the COVID-19 recession.

In a report released on Friday, the commission says the $6.1bn spent by the federal and state governments each year on vocational education and training needs to be more focused on helping stud­ents get the training they need.

Productivity Commissioner Jonathan Coppel, one of two ­people who produced the report, says the COVID-19 pandemic that has driven Australia into recession means the “big reform­ questions” in vocational education need to be dealt with.

“If there’s a moment for that, now must be that moment,” Mr Coppel says.

The National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development Review sets out bold options, including extending HECS-type loans to nearly all VET courses to give vocational students the same advantage university students get in paying no fees upfront.

It says that if a loan scheme was well-designed, it would avoid the rorting by dodgy education provider­s that destroyed the earlier VET FEE-HELP scheme, which offered loans to vocational dip­loma students.

The report also says the VET sector needs to adjust to people’s need to learn new skills, or boost the ones they have, at any stage of their careers. It says a reformed student loan scheme offering broader access could help.

It also suggests that instead of state and territory governments providing direct subsidies to registered training organisations to offer vocational training, a voucher system would give students more choice and encourage higher quality.

“It is time to think about shifting the focus from funnelling subsidies­ to training providers to giving students more help to choose the training they need,’’ says Malcolm Roberts, who with Mr Coppel was a commissioner on the report.

“We now have dozens of different subsidy rates, even for the same courses.”

The report points out that one of the most popular VET courses — the certificate 3 in individual support, which qualifies people to work in aged and disability care — varies in cost around Australia, with the standard subsidy differing by as much as $3700.

The report also says the VET sector is performing poorly and employer satisfaction with nationally recognised training fell from 86 per cent in 2009 to 79 per cent last year.

The number of government-­funded VET stud­ents who improved their job status after graduating fell from 65 per cent in 2009 to 59 per cent in 2018.

The report says many students are choos­ing to go to university rather than get a VET qualification, and evidence suggests some who did poorly at university could have found a better job if they had done a VET course.

“There tends to be a negative connotation associated with VET and that’s something that needs to be looked at,” Mr Coppel says.

He says it is time to replace the national agreement for skills and workforce developmen­t between the federal, state and territory governments, which began in 2009. “It’s lost its way,” he says.

The report also says there should be better information about vocational courses for students and that there should be a single national regul­ator for the VET sector. The report is an interim­ one, and the Productivity Commission will take more submissions before its final tabling.