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CEO Update: February 2018

Ever the optimist, I’m excited about the year ahead and hope that the positive outcomes of the past year continue into 2018. We’ve started this year busily working on several significant projects aimed at supporting member colleges and driving the sector. Watch this space for more information.

 

As announced on Friday, we are leading the development of two Market Action Plans for Indonesia and Vietnam. Working with IEAA and on behalf of Austrade, we are kick-starting these plans by consulting extensively with the international education sector. The online survey you recently received forms part of these consultations. Please take the time to complete it. 

 

On my way to work today, I saw an entire light rail train covered with a message targeting international students. It wasn’t graffiti but an advertisement by Westpac promoting ‘fee-free accounts for international students’. I was struck by the fact that in some ways, the light has been shone on our little 28 billion dollar industry. If the big banks are starting to recognise the contribution that 600,000 international students make to the economy, what next?

 

As a member of the Council for International Education, we often grapple with how much the social, cultural and economic value of international students contributes to the broader community. Perhaps the not-so-subtle advertising by a big bank is a signal that we are starting to recognise just how much international students mean to our communities. I hope this translates into a warm welcome from all of us, not just the big banks, to our international student community.

 

Our colleagues at ASQA have been busy this year, announcing regulatory action toward StudyGroup that I feel requires some clarification. If you saw the initial advice, I hope that you also reviewed the follow-up statements. These noted that the action was isolated to some vocational courses. In fact, the broad group of colleges, including those that teach ELICOS, were not affected by the decision. In this instance, it appears that an unintended consequence of a single CRICOS provider code meant several entities were publicly listed without due cause. 

 

The ESOS agency’s notice that it is considering imposing a condition against all accredited (VET) English programs appears to be a further unintended consequence in applying the new ELICOS Standards. English Australia strongly endorses the principles of the ELICOS standards. We have advocated for many years that these standards should apply to all providers of English language courses (ELICOS) to international students. It is essential that there is a level playing field for all providers and that high-quality benchmarks exist for all students. However, this view was not to say that VET courses could not exist, just that they should be compliant with the ELICOS Standards.

 

ASQA’s view appears to be that it is not feasible for a provider to adhere to the ELICOS Standards 2018 from 1 March 2018 while also meeting the requirements of the Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2015 (Standards for RTOs) under the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011. The unintended consequence is that several high-quality providers will now need to re-register some courses as non-award should they wish to teach them. This is despite adhering to the previous ELICOS Standards while teaching these VET courses. I hope that ASQA quickly processes any applications these providers need to make and so reduces the impact of this decision. Going forward, the task of the regulator will be to ensure that any providers that previously looked to exploit a loophole are compliant. The regulator does appear to be a strongly committed to this.

 

The English Australia Board will meet in two weeks’ time and will be joined by two new representatives. Please see more in the related ‘meet the XX’ in this newsletter. I’d like to thank the two outgoing Board members, Aparna Jacob and Marian Star. Both were extremely dedicated and on behalf of the entire Board and secretariat team, we wish them all the best with their future endeavours.