Training providers in Australia will soon be banned from offering what the government calls “miraculously” short diploma courses, and from offering students incentives to sign up, ABC News reported on Thursday.
The ban will be applied under a new legislation ready to be introduced by the Federal Government.
Announcing a range of measures to crack down on rogue and “dodgy” providers, Assistant Training Minister Simon Birmingham said he was “very concerned” that the Government’s vocational education loans scheme (VET FEE-HELP) was being abused.
Training colleges will be banned from offering laptops, iPads, prizes and other inducements to attract students, and unscrupulous institutions fined and forced to refund their course fees.
Quoting from Government figures, the report said that over 180,000 students had accessed the VET FEE-HELP scheme last year, taking out more than $1.6 billion in loans.
The new legislative changes would prevent students from taking out billions in bad loans over the next decade, the Minister said.
