ACPET National Monday Update Edition 604, 18 May 2015

No doubt you are all aware we had a federal budget brought down last week. There was very little mention of post school education and training. There were however a number of announcements that impact on private providers of education and training. These include:

1. Visa Applications costs to increase by either the level of the CPI, 5% or 10%.
2. Reduced taxation and incentives for small business. Obviously this is a positive outcome for our smaller providers.
3. Higher Education reforms. The various releases from the Government have reinforced the Government position that it will continue to make significant investment to strengthen Australia’s higher education, research and vocational education and training sectors to confirm Australia’s position as a knowledge−based nation.
   The Government remains committed to the higher education reforms, but as you know these have not yet been agreed to by the Senate. It is critical that ACPET members continue to promote the importance of student choice and also highlight the great achievements of the private sector. This remains a huge challenge for all of us.
4. New apprenticeship arrangements. The new apprenticeship arrangements were announced even though the contract announcements were made a month ago. It will be interesting to see how these changes translate in practice. Concerns have been expressed about the level of service that will be provided to rural and remote areas despite contract requirements to service the whole country. It is interesting that this change has also allowed some States to significantly reduce their funding in this area. The total level of support appears to have been reduced…. Read more