also from today's Australian:
Training scandals stretch to aviation
Two scandals at Adelaide’s Parafield Airport have raised fears that the training loans debacle has infiltrated aviation, potentially endangering passengers and dashing the career dreams of would-be pilots and maintenance specialists.
On Saturday, The Weekend Australian revealed that a “serious training bungle” at TAFE SA’s aviation training campus had forced the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to suspend parts of the licences of about 90 aircraft maintenance engineers. While details of the failure have not been disclosed, students blamed fast-tracking and incorrect documentation of practical components of the training in an effort to graduate as many as possible.
Today, The Australian reports that another college based at the airport faces closure over an audit finding that it misled students and regulators, and profiteered from state and federal training funding schemes. The Australian Skills Quality Authority investigation found that.......had issued students “multiple contradictory transcripts” . ASQA’s report suggests the school failed to establish students’ capacity to undertake the training , denied them access to vital study resources and blamed their inability to progress on “learning difficulties” . Three former students have applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for the cancellation of debts — understood to be about $90,000 each — accrued under the VET FEE-HELP loans scheme. They are understood to have been part of a class of 23 students who enrolled in late 2013, none of whom passed. Their requests for the college to cancel the debts were denied after reviews that dragged on for months.
South Australian senator Nick Xenophon took up the students’ cause during an estimates hearing last October. He told The Australian he had “serious concerns” about the treatment of students who had amassed huge debts under VET FEE-HELP . He said the new revelations suggested a “broader issue” around aviation schools. “It’s such a high-profile , glamorous career, but people just don’t get work out of it.” Some engineers affected by the TAFE SA bungle said it had cost them up to $1000 a week in wages. Others said they were in danger of missing out on job openings or promotions. South Australian opposition spokesman David Pisoni called on the state government to conduct a full audit of TAFE SA processes and qualifications “to ensure this failure isn’t being repeated in other courses” . Greens MP Tammy Franks, who was involved in two recent vocational education inquiries, warned the aviation training scandal was “likely to be the tip of the iceberg” .
Last edited by outnabout; 6th Sep 2017 at 00:57.