Nearly 300 ghost colleges shut down or shown yellow card amid Vocational Education Training crackdown
Nearly 300 so-called ghost colleges have been shut down or put on notice amid a government crackdown on vocational providers offering international students visas but no education.
The Australian Skills Quality Authority has cancelled the registration of about 150 VET providers which failed to prove they had provided any training to anyone over the past 12 months.
It has given another 140 providers notice they must resume quality training by the end of the year or they too will be shut down.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.This accounts for about one in 12 of the nation’s 3800 registered training organisations.
More than a third of the providers involved were in NSW and another third were based in Queensland. Approximately 15 were in WA.
In one case, a college had not delivered any training or assessment of students since 2020, and could not provide sufficient evidence to the watchdog that it would start doing so again.
Other providers have promised they will resume training within months despite not having done any throughout 2023, and have been put on notice by the regulator.
“The Albanese Government is calling time on the rorts and loopholes that have plagued the VET sector for far too long under the former Liberal and National Government,” Skills and Training Minister Andrew Giles said.
“We’ve weeded out and shut down around 150 dormant operators, and 140 more have been given a yellow card.
“Under our government, there is no place for anyone who seeks to undermine the sector and exploit students.”
The crackdown on vocational providers is part of a suite of measures the Government brought in earlier in the year to reduce the number of temporary visa holders in Australia.
It also set tougher English language standards and a new “genuine student” test intended to weed out people who wanted to come to Australia primarily to work, not study.
Twin reviews of the migration and international education systems found many people were using international student visas as a back door to gaining working rights and ultimately permanent residency despite not being highly skilled.
