Liquidators called in… the first domino to fall in the international VET sector?

As the tertiary education sector welcomes two new Ministers I am struck that the sector is undergoing a fundamental reshaping that they will need to grapple with.

Ministers have the power to address one of the challenges facing the sector and may choose to moderate some of the government’s actions, but the second challenge is much less discussed and will inevitably also be of significance to Minister Clare.

The first challenge I am referring to is obviously the impact of the government’s policy changes in international education and the looming imposition of caps on the number of international education students that providers can enrol.

Back when the government’s response to the Migration Strategy was released I cautioned that the introduction of the new Genuine Student test would impact many international VET providers. Requiring students to prove that the money their families were looking to invest in their education in Australia would generate a positive future benefit in terms of career opportunities and future salary was a bold move by the government, and puts Australia ahead of other destination countries in putting students’ interests first. But it was clear it would have an impact on many genuine, quality international VET providers because of the relatively modest future earnings of many of their graduates on their return to their home countries.

And of course, all of that was before the government announced major increases to the funds students need to have available when they apply for a visa and indeed the cost of the visa itself, and before the government made a raft of other changes to how it processes student visa applications which the sector has justifiably criticised.

Last week the Tuition Protection Service published details that the liquidators have been called in to a small international VET provider based in the ACT.

The provider was known to me during my tenure at ACPET. Established in 2010 it has a CRICOS cap of only 241 students.

Between 2010 and 2014 I never heard of them having any compliance issues.

In 2019 ASQA looked to remove the Certificate III in Commercial Cookery from their scope of registration. The decision was subsequently set aside in the AAT.

Their entry on the training.gov.au website shows no evidence of any ASQA actions being taken against them since 2019 and they were also not included on the list of providers which was widely circulated a few months ago and who were understood to have been issued with a warning letter from the Department of Home Affairs for “non-genuine or exploitative enrolment practices”.

If this provider has closed their doors because of the impact of the changes to international student visas which have been progressively introduced since late 2023 then the sector should brace for many more closures to come… unless that is the sector leadership can convince Ministers Burke and Giles to modify the changes being introduced to international education.

And as for the second challenge facing the sector – its impact will be felt more keenly in higher education than VET and I will unpack my thinking on it next week…