The Australian has written an interesting piece today on their take of the latest government reshuffling within the education sector. While the media has focused their attention on the latest change within the government’s education portfolio, Labor is also in the process of reordering their education representatives. Both The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald have today reported that Labor’s vocational education minister Sharon Bird  is at risk of losing her frontbencher spot to fellow NSW right MP Ed Husic.  Meanwhile, Labor higher education spokesman Kim Carr is also expected to lose his frontbench spot after senior colleagues turned against him.

The article also makes an interesting comparison between the Australian VET sector and its international counterparts. According to a recent report by the National Council for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), the Australian Training training system lay at the extreme end of the international spectrum in terms of spreading itself too thin. Australia has a college for every 3000 or so working age adults, while Ontario (a province in Canada) has a ratio about five times as healthy. 

Interestingly, when The Australian sought the opinion of Gavin Moodie who’s a professor at both Toronto and RMIT universities,  they were told that NCVER only took Canada’s “credit bearing” colleges into account, where the programs counted towards degrees. Moodie stated that Private colleges in Canada do not receive government subsidies, so there is no report of scams, yet many of these colleges have experienced similar complaints  that are “eerily similar” to some of Australia’s for-profit colleges.

According to Moodie “About a third of Canada’s students are eligible for student loans, and the Ontario government has had to bail out the students of at least one private college.”

The Australian also stated that Enrolees at Everest College Canada paid their fees upfront but couldn’t complete their programs due to its bankruptcy last year.

While some may find it almost comforting to know that Australia is not the only country to be dealing with a crisis within the VET sector, many are still are becoming increasingly uneasy about the continuous shifts within the Education portfolio.  In the most recent reshuffle, Mr Turnbull appointed Queensland MP Karen Andrews as assistant minister for vocational education, which makes her the fourth person to hold the portfolio within a year.

Karen Andrews joins Education Minister Simon Birmingham in the government’s pledge to clean up the vocational sector. In a recent statement, Senator Birmingham promised to “play a leading role in finalising the redesign of labour’s failed VET FEE-HELP scheme, seeking where possible to ensure consistency of approach across the tertiary education sector.”

To read the full article by ‘The Australian’ or the latest report by NCVER, you can visit their websites.