Community Colleges Australia (CCA) has issued a policy statement on VET FEE-HELP, the Australian Government loan scheme that assists eligible students enrolled in certain higher-level VET courses.
The CCA statement notes that, “Our members serve their communities by putting their students first” and “are dedicated to the provision of relevant, affordable and accessible lifelong learning opportunities, including vocational education and training.”
Only a minority of community education providers utilise VET FEE-HELP, in part because it is only applicable for diploma, advanced diploma, graduate certificate and graduate diploma qualifications.
The CCA statement commits all CCA members to:
putting students’ interests first by being honest, providing clear pre-enrolment information and assisting students to make wise choices that will enhance their education, career opportunities and learning plans and quality of life.
CCA members will be:
transparent and honest with prospective and current students regarding their fees, ensuring that tuition fees are a true representative of the fair and reasonable cost of providing the course and not in any way raising fees to take unreasonable advantage of the availability of VET FEE-HELP.
CCA members are committed to “not allowing students to be set up for failure,” the statement says. We avoid failure by identifying gaps in the core skills of our learners during the enrolment process and providing support to those students that have gaps.
Read the full CCA VET FEE-HELP statement here.
