I listened to a very interesting webinar last week on the "Vet Reform Taskforce" conducted by the Department of Industry in association with VELG Training, inviting stakeholders to participate in a constructive discussion on the current Vocational training system in Australia.

Although VET is highly regarded internationally there seems to be lots of criticism nationally of late: the questions appear to include:

Is there too much complexity within the VET system; are students work-ready after training;
Does the one size fitting all suit RTOs moving forward;
Is regulation/accreditation too burdensome and costly for RTOs;
Is there consistency in quality across the VET deliveries; and
Do the skills being trained today meet the needs of our industry tomorrow?

There was a lively discussion surrounding 3 main topics:

1. Is there too much red tape (cost in time and dollars to RTOs) taking away from the business of training and assessing. Main comments here seem to be surrounding the issues of whether RTOs should be self-regulating and whether low risk RTOs could have 'earned autonomy'. 2. How to keep training packages responsive to changes within the industry without increasing unnecessary burdens in 'churn' in documentation and training resources to RTOs - how to strike a balance here? Most seem to want to place more responsibility on the ISCs - should more employees and employers be directly involved and consulted (and what would be the cost of doing this on small / medium businesses). 3. Is Government funding hitting the mark as far as meeting tomorrow's skill requirements in industry?

Further comments are invited to "vettaskforce@industry.gov.au" or phone 133 873.