The Australian government has introduced stronger laws to protect students from being targeted by unscrupulous private training and education colleges.
Announcing the reforms on 1 January, federal vocational education and skills minister Luke Hartsuyker said they were designed to stop “predatory behaviours” by private colleges seeking to pressure students to sign up for VET FEE-HELP loans and over-priced bogus courses.
The move follows a Senate education committee inquiry in 2015 into the country’s Training and Further Education programme and the federal government’s $1.6 billion vocational training loan scheme.