We’ve been busy…

We’re thrilled to announce the opening of our new Melbourne office this week. Since aXcelerate began, we’ve amassed a large client base in our home-state of Queensland which we pride ourselves on providing consistently high levels of customer satisfaction to (our net satisfaction rating hasn’t fallen below 95% since we implemented it last year). As we’ve grown in the last few years, we’ve seen an increasing amount of new clients based in Victoria joining us, and to keep up with this growth we’ll be ramping up our sales and service operations there in the coming months. Victoria also provides an interesting platform for future growth in the education market for a few important reasons.

Training Organisations in Victoria

According to IBISWorld, Victoria is home to just over 38.3% of all training organisations across Australia, which is far more than any other state. In fact, this is nearly as much as the combined amount of New South Wales (27%) and Queensland (13.2%). Total government funding matches the spread of training organisations, with Victoria receiving 38.3% of all dollars. Victoria also has the highest proportion of international students at a university level, at 32.8%, and has been named as the world’s fourth top-university city, after London, Boston and Tokyo. Victoria saw a surge in total enrolment numbers in the VET sector after the implementation of ASQA in 2011, as the state had already been following a market-driven system. Victoria is definitely appears to be the defacto leader in VET in Australia. Adding to these favourable conditions for Victoria is the recent change in government.

A Change in Government

We talked recently of the Victorian Elections and the potential ramifications for training organisations in the state. While it’s hard to say with complete confidence whether a government change will lead (directly or indirectly) to increased activity in the VET sector, it’s worth noting that a labour government has typically led to higher levels of funding. This would mean both an increase in the diversity of organisations competing for learners, and a scaling-up of existing training centres, who would no doubt be looking for the latest advances in business and education processes. The TAFE and VET sectors, in particular, have received a large amount of attention (and pledges) from the Labor government. The very first pledge the party has made regarding VET is: “Labor will reform the VET system to ensure Victoria’s industry skills needs are met, and people gain meaningful qualifications to get a job or to retrain for the needs of industries in transition”. They have also pledged to target poor quality providers, specifically those who rort the system, and exclude them from public funding. For providers playing fair this is great news, and together with AVETMISS reporting, this tilts the playing field towards organisations with the highest quality courses (and not just those with the deepest pockets and snappiest marketing).

aXcelerate in Victoria

Over the next few years, our goal is to create a centre of competence for aXcelerate and its application in the VET space in Victoria, in order to keep up with the change and growth sweeping the state. Our goal is always – “to create a world-class Student and Training Management System that people love use, supported by service with H.E.A.R.T.” To support this,  we’ll be hosting a series of aXcelerate Days across Melbourne in the coming months for you to learn more about aXcelerate.

To enquire about attending the event, contact Emily Harris on (07) 3215 8888, or email enquiries@axcelerate.com.au, or alternatively fill out our web enquiries form here.