VET News

New Report from the Australian National Audit Office

The vocational education and training (VET) sector aims to deliver workplace specific skills and knowledge across a wide range of careers, industries and levels of personal development. VET service providers include technical and further education institutes, adult and community education providers, agricultural colleges, universities and schools, industry skill centres, commercial and enterprise training providers, as well as other private providers.

The VET Student Loans (VSL) program replaced the VET FEE-HELP (VFH) scheme. It was formally endorsed by the Australian Government in October 2016 for commencement from 1 January 2017 and is administered by the Department of Education and Training (the department). VET Student Loans are income-contingent loans available to eligible students. The core objective of the VSL program is to remove upfront financial barriers to VET training in order to make it more accessible to students who may not otherwise have access.

The VSL program was selected for audit because it is intended to address a number of significant deficiencies identified with the administration of the VFH scheme.

• The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of the department’s design and implementation of the VET Student Loans program. To form a conclusion against the audit objective, the ANAO adopted the following high level criteria:
• Was an appropriate design process established to support the achievement of the Government’s policy objectives?
• Were sound arrangements established to support the implementation and management of the program?

The audit focused on:

• activities pursued by the department in designing the VSL program;
• the extent to which lessons learnt from the VFH scheme were incorporated in its design (including the learnings noted in Auditor-General Report No.31 of 2016–17 Administration of the VET FEE-HELP Scheme);
• stakeholder consultation on the design and implementation of the new loans program;
• the extent to which risks were considered during the design process and its implementation; and
• the adequacy of the department’s performance management approach.

For more information, to read the report and its findings, please see the original overview on the APO website.

Date posted Nov 15, 2018