12 November 2008
AUDITOR GENERAL SAYS DET AND COLLEGES NEED TO DO MUCH
MORE TO HELP STUDENTS STAY THE COURSE
Vocational Education and Training (VET) plays a crucial role in improving skills in the workforce, and providing skilled labour. Over $500 million of public funds were spent on VET in 2007, but the numbers participating have been falling. DET and the Colleges do not actually know how many students successfully complete their courses but last estimates show that only 16% of students (outside of apprenticeship and traineeships) stay the course.
In a report tabled in Parliament today the Auditor General, Mr Colin Murphy called on the Department of Education and Training (DET) and Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Colleges to focus more on student retention and achievement. “The current focus on enrolments is producing more apprentices and trainees, but it is not addressing a decline in the other 75% of VET. Better retention and achievement would improve outcomes for students, industry and the community,” he stated.
He noted that there is significant scope to get more students to stay and complete, but DET’s funding of Colleges provided no direct incentive for student retention and achievement. Funding is based upon specified hours of training and not the numbers of students who complete a module or course. “Colleges retain their funding whether or not students stay the course. This clearly demonstrates the VET funding model is flawed”, said Mr Murphy.
His audit calculations show that if Colleges had to pay a refund for module withdrawals in 2007 it would have cost them nearly $22 million, almost $20 million of it in Institutional Based Training (IBT). The report examined how DET and Colleges managed attraction, retention and achievement in VET. It examined trends in publicly funded VET delivered by Colleges and other Registered Training Organisations over the last five years and more importantly how DET and the Colleges were responding to these trends.
Mr Murphy found that whilst DET and training providers have responded to increased demand for apprentices and trainees by increasing enrolments 72 per cent and 27 per cent respectively, the number of enrolments in publicly funded IBT have dropped by over 10 per cent (10 000 enrolments) since 2003.
Other findings showed that whilst DET and the Colleges have been attempting to increase enrolments overall, within certain occupations and amongst higher level courses, these objectives are not being met:
- the proportion of the population engaged in publicly funded VET has fallen since 2003 by around 6 000 students each year to 2007
- enrolments in some IBT areas of high industry need are down by between 23 and 60 per cent
- IBT enrolments by older people (30+) looking to up-skill or re-skill are down by about 12 per cent since 2003
- enrolments in higher-level IBT qualifications (Certificate III and above) were 18 per cent lower (11 000) in 2007 than 2003, with Advanced Diploma enrolments down by more than half.
Mr Murphy recommended that DET should:
- know how many students complete their IBT courses
- provide incentives to Colleges to improve retention and achievement and focus delivery agreements more on outcomes than inputs.
He asked that together with Colleges, DET:
- implement strategies, such as increased workplace based delivery, to attract more IBT students
- improve and report information on the way students engage with VET, and the range of outcomes achieved including skill sets, specifically through the introduction of a unique student identifier.
Finally he recommended Colleges:
- implement strategies to improve retention and achievement to improve productivity and deliver better outcomes within funding constraints
- provide the public with performance information including withdrawal, failure and completion rate information to improve transparency and accountability for performance.
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