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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-07-12 Daily Xml
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SKILLS FOR ALL

Mr PISONI (Unley) (14:32): My question is to the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills. On what basis are private training organisations which are nationally accredited and compliant being rejected as Skills for All providers without being told why they are being rejected, when the government has not even contacted their referees in assessing their applications?

The SPEAKER: There is a lot of supposition in that question, but I will ask the minister to answer it.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland—Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for Recreation and Sport) (14:32): I have answered a number of questions about Skills for All over the last few months. One of the things I have mentioned repeatedly has been the government's focus on the quality of training, because I believe that, if the quality of training is not maintained and improved upon over the next few years, the whole credibility of the VET system will disintegrate.

To combat some of the circumstances that occurred in Victoria, where there were significant problems with their equivalent—and they have been reported particularly in the Financial Review but also in other papers—one of the quality assurance levels we introduced was a vetting process for Skills for All. Before you could receive the state government Skills for All money, you had to go through this vetting process with the state government.

I do not apologise for that. I do not apologise for assuring ourselves of the quality of providers. I do not think it is a bad thing for us to review the quality of the education that is being provided and the quality of those providers that are providing it. If I did anything different, there would be howls of outrage. If RTOs do not meet the criteria set out very clearly in the application process, they are not approved. It would be ridiculous to approve companies or RTOs that did not meet the criteria. It would just be crazy. There would be no point having criteria if you did that so, if companies do not meet the criteria, we do not approve them.

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