Welcome to the April 2020 issue of the VET BI report.
Providers continue to tweak their offerings to facilitate online and other “socially distanced” delivery modes. As we start to see things warming up again, new non-accredited short courses to deal with the special business conditions and employment-focused programs are being rolled out, leggi di più qui, to support those adapting to rapid market changes. International education has clearly taken a big hit, as has anyone supporting hospitality industries, and the focus there is on medium to term survival by diversification or “hibernation”. One thing is for sure – we certainly do live in “interesting” times.
New RTOs
The upswing in new RTOs in March (10) has continued with 15 new RTOs registered in April. Nobody can say when international travel might be back, and more importantly how long it will take for demand to bounce back to pre-crisis levels when restrictions are lifted. We will be watching out for the “welcome back” specials on flights and cruises!
Here are the new entrants in April:
NSW (7)
45596 Mid North Coast Community College Ltd (Broad Scope)
45594 United Training Vocational Pty Ltd (First Aid)
45600 The Training Company (Aus) Pty Ltd (Business)
45599 The College (Aus) Pty Ltd (Business)
45601 EM Institute (Hospitality)
45605 Australian College of Digital Business Pty Ltd (Business)
45606 Future Education Group Pty. Ltd. (Business)
QLD (4)
45595 Contal Training Services Pty Ltd (Welfare)
45598 Acro Business College (Financial Services)
45597 Sheer Workplace Training Pty Ltd (Equipment)
45607 First Aide In Cairns (First Aid)
VIC (2)
45603 Institute of Business and Finance Pty Ltd (Business)
45604 AIO Contracting (Plastics)
WA (1)
52853 Blue Horse WA (Transport)
TAS (1)
45602 Lady Gowrie Tasmania Incorporated (Community Services)
Restrictions
There were 9 restrictions added in April (and 5 ended), with no general suspensions. The bulk of the restrictions involved requiring more frequent reporting in some courses and restrictions delivery methods to address temporary or potential issues but while still allowing the courses to be delivered by the provider. This is more evidence that ASQA is taking a more nuanced and proportional response to compliance problems than it has in the past. Notice also that of the 9 restrictions removed across March and April, only one RTO was cancelled and 8 were cleared. This indicates that the majority of RTOs are able to address ASQA concerns and return to normal operations.
Training component changes
Continuing the busy trend from March, April was a very busy period for content creators. Many RTOs will have some major work to do in the next few months on top of everything else that is going on. It appears that the areas changing are related to business and employment. We can reasonably speculate that some of these changes are in response to the crisis and perhaps the lull in previous months was time spend reviewing content and rules.
There are so may changes in March and April that only the most specialised RTOs will be unaffected. We suggest that you review the entire list and read up on the changes within your scope on the training.gov.au web site.
With VET BI, you set your watch list to notify you when a competitor in your regions of interest adds an item to scope in an category you are interested in. This gives you a more tightly focused view of your competitors changes to scope.
Funding changes
After a slow start to the year, some new funding approvals came through in April. There were 7 RTOs approved for funding in SA during the period and only a few in other jurisdictions.
VET BI can provide you with email alerts about who’s getting funding (and who’s not) that is targeted to your subjects and regions of interest.
Reports
You can view the reports below for all details on recent activity and changes.