Good on you 7.30 for lifting the lid on this. However, poor vocational skills training is not simply limited to the smaller provider you examined in tonights 7.30, but regrettably present across some of the more established and respected providers, where a lack of accountability, absence of expertise and duty of care is now entrenched in a few well padded pockets of the industry. Some training modules are advertised but never taught at all, or if they are taught, its at a very minimal and hardly acceptable standard. Some of the 'training manuals' are poorly written, with spelling errors and poor grammar. Students in such courses are, in the main, understandably afraid to speak out and question the poor standard of training once they have signed up and handed over the fee. The students in tonight's program were very brave, but I think they had all finished their programs, so they were perhaps more free to speak out? I would love 7.30 to exercise its civil responsibility and do a much wider investigation and expose the unchecked rort growing in our vocational training system. You would do a great service to our country and our young people if you did.

This is not news to most of us in the VET sector who care! And the call is going out for more scrutiny of RTOs - please, no more scrutiny - please. Different scrutiny is what we need. If only the auditoring authority (ASQA) would stop checking mountains of useless paper and processess and start checking just 2 things: 1. does the certified person have the skill - and 2. were they treated properly in the process. I don't think that the auditor ever checks - honestly. This is all so foreseeable. Shame!!! I think that the Government (TAFE maybe) should have an independant assessment unit for every trade discipline to verify all certifications - and then let anyone do the training.

The vocational training program and its poor performance is the main reason why we have to import skilled labour for our mining and construction sectors. In the ACT for the past five years attempts to train " the concrete trades" via RTO's like the MBA and The CFMEU have been failed because according to an MBA training spokesperson there is not enough profit in it for them. This means only about 30% of ACT construction workers receive vocational training. The rest get nothing. And, that's what happens when RTO, s are profit driven and don't have the nations interest at heart. The statistics tell it all-no local training but plenty of overseas construction workers being paid big dollars for their skills.

A truck driver "delivering" qualifications in the furniture industry throughout Southern NSW with no industry qualifications or experience; trainees receiving qualifications from RTO's they've never met for qualifications they didn't even know they were enrolled in. These are commonplace examples of private RTO's rorting both the system, taxpayers, employers and apprentices! And all the while our governments slash the capacity of our public RTO's and watch as the dollars reward fly by night providers. A greater level of monitoring of private RTO's and the dubious relationships between RTO's, Job Network Providers, Australian Apprenticeship Centres and other key stakeholders where the system reeks of corruption is sorely needed.