The entry of “training entitlement” now agreed by COAG is the new wild card for Australia’s VET reform. The Commonwealth proceeded with its $1.75 billion proposal for entitlement, wrapped in the promise to extend income contingent loans. Yet it pushed ...

It was fortuitous that while COAG was meeting to sign off on a new tranche of reforms for the tertiary sector, the Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association conference in Canberra was addressing issues around the value and voice ...

Industry bodies and TAFE have praised the results of last week’s Council of Australian Governments meeting, saying it is a good step towards solving the country’s skills shortage. “[The meeting] reached an important agreement that ramps up the effort in ...

Governments are sending unclear and contradictory messages to teachers, a leading researcher tells John Mitchell. COAG decisions on VET funding arrangements are of secondary importance compared with the future quality of teaching across the sector. Funding arrangements are simply a ...

The ACT government has denied an accusation that it is using COAG as a smokescreen to abandon plans for a proposed University of Canberra Institute of Technology (UCIT). The territory government put the proposal on hold until after the COAG ...

The COAG discussion of VET reform in April will implode, with most states rejecting Canberra’s attempt to control the VET agenda. The Victorian state budget, with Treasury usurping Peter Hall, will include a massive reduction in funds for VET, to ...

A federal government threat to redirect the $9 billion for national skills development away from state and territory coffers has not caused a rush to sign up for the revised agreement. The states and territories are still poring over the ...

With alarm bells ringing in Victoria, there must be an inquiry into the shift away from public to private providers, writes           Pat Forward. As government bureaucrats and politicians prepare for the first COAG meeting for ...

The Victorian government experimentation with VET funding is starting to unravel, with the latest revelation that one of its training providers increased its recognition of prior learning enrolments from 1 to 134 in one year. “Blind Freddy could have seen such ...