A national register of private education providers promoted by the government contains false and misleading information that could place students at risk of exploitation and fraud.
Prospective domestic and international students rely on the register to know whether providers meet set standards. Entries for colleges that have received an adverse finding from the Australian Skills Quality Authority (Asqa) are required to show details of any sanctions or suspensions that have been applied.
But Guardian Australia has uncovered at least 40 cases where that information was not disclosed on the register. In some cases courses run by colleges whose registration had been cancelled still appeared on the list.
Asqa disputed Guardian Australia’s findings but acknowledged that it had identified five errors which it was investigating. For several cases it said it was not required to disclose much of the information that has been omitted from the register, including cancellation decisions, where educational providers challenged rulings in the administrative appeals tribunal. Federal education law states that the register must disclose when a cancellation decision has been made as well as the day it takes effect from.
Widespread allegations of fraud and misconduct have dogged the private education sector since the former Labor government opened up access to student loans for vocational education students. The government plans to overhaul the loans system and has frozen funding for education providers following claims that students had been persuaded to incur debts for courses for which they were ill-suited.
Asqa regulates thousands of training providers by conducting periodic audits. Failures to meet education benchmarks can lead to a range of conditions being imposed, such as preventing colleges running certain courses, or requiring them to submit to greater supervision from Asqa.
More serious breaches, such as failing to properly instruct students or have appropriate trainers, can lead to registration being suspended or cancelled.
In the most serious cases, courses for which Asqa had served notices of cancellation remained on the register.
Beauty for Life, the Australian College for Further Education and the Australian Institute of Professional Education have had parts of their registration cancelled by Asqa. The companies have appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, but none has been granted a decision to delay the cancellation. It’s unclear whether this information needs to be disclosed on the register.
In other cases cancellation of courses has been delayed pending the outcome of appeals, but this information has not been disclosed on the register. Federal education law doesn’t say whether this information should be listed.
Students considering studying at these colleges would have no knowledge of these decisions, with each entry on the register listing their status simply as “current”.
In one case, Australian Business Skills Pty Ltd was found by Asqa to be seriously noncompliant and had its registration cancelled for failure to supervise trainers and failure to provide support for special needs of students.
The cancellation decision was upheld by the administrative decisions tribunal, but the provider was allowed to re-register subject to conditions to take into account its “past failures”. No record of these decisions appears on the national register, and it’s unclear whether the previous decision needs to be disclosed under the Act.
Information on courses that have been suspended for failing to meet educational standards has also been omitted from the register in circumstances where feeral law requires disclosure. Providers affected include Australian Institute of Trades Pty Ltd, Castle Personnel Services Ltd, Boomerang Training Solutions, Imagineering Training Pty Ltd, , Management Institute of Australia No 2 Pty Ltd, Merage Global Institute of Technology and St Edmunds College.
The national register has been heavily promoted by the government. The vocational education minister, Luke Hartsuyker, has provided guides for school-leavers which lists training.gov.au as a “useful website” for links to vocational and technical education opportunities.
The data from the national register is also used for the myskills.gov.au website, which Hartsuyker has encouraged “anyone thinking about undertaking training” to visit as recently as last month. The education minister, Simon Birmingham, has also encouraged students to use the site, and said it had received more than a million visits in the past year.
Asqa is responsible for the information on the register, but it is maintained on a daily basis by the education department. It is unclear whether the errors are a result of Asqa’s handling of information or the education department’s updates.
The list of errors identified was compiled by analysing a separate table of decisions that Asqa publishes, as well as court and tribunal documents. The list was provided to Asqa and the education department before publication.
A spokesman for Asqa said it made every effort to ensure data was accurate, and regularly undertook reviews.
“Asqa has undertaken a review of the 42 items supplied by the Guardian. Asqa believes that in 37 of the instances the information on training.gov.au is complete and correct.
“Asqa has identified an issue with the information provided in the remaining five instances and these are being investigated.”
The spokesman said Asqa’s register lists decisions that may be the subject of review and that it was within the agency’s discretion whether to release that information to the public more widely on the training.gov.au site.
“The fact that Asqa publishes additional information on its website does not mean that the national register is thereby inaccurate. Asqa’s information is additional to what is published on TGA [training.gov.au],” he said.
Know more? Email paul.farrell@theguardian.com
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