Funding Chaos: Navigating Australia's Complex VET Landscape with Lauren Hollows

🎙 In this episode of the RTO Superhero Podcast, Angela Connell-Richards and co-host Lauren Hollows tackle a confronting reality in Australia’s VET sector—how arbitrary funding decisions are crippling high-performing private RTOs.

Despite delivering 80% of Australia’s training, private RTOs receive just 30% of government funding. Even worse? RTOs with exceptional outcomes are being denied funding simply because their success happened in the “wrong” state.

🚨 What’s happening behind the scenes:

• 📉 Outstanding RTOs excluded from funding programs due to postcode politics
• 📊 “Mom and pop” RTOs pushed out by skyrocketing compliance costs
• 📈 One RTO slashed unit completion times from 400 to 84 days—just by using their own data better

Angela and Lauren unpack how this imbalance is reshaping Australia’s training landscape—and why it’s time to stop pitting TAFE vs. private RTOs and start building collaborative solutions.

✅ What you’ll learn in this episode:

• The real cost of underfunding private RTOs—and who’s paying for it
• Why compliance pressure is forcing quality providers out of the sector
• How data-driven management can dramatically improve performance
• What it will take to create a sustainable, student-focused training system

🎧 Tune in to hear what’s really happening—and how you can help fix it.

✍️ Support the cause: change.org/save_private_rtos

 Join host Angela Connell-Richards as she opens each episode with a burst of insight and inspiration. Discover why compliance is your launchpad to success, not a limitation. 

Connect with fellow RTO professionals in our free Facebook groups: the RTO Community and RTO Job Board. Visit rtosuperhero.au/groups to join today. 

 Ready to elevate your RTO? Join our Superhero Membership community and gain access to expert resources, training, and personalised support to help you thrive. 

Wrap up with gratitude and guidance. Subscribe, leave a review, and join our community as we continue supporting your compliance journey in vocational education. 

Chapters

• 0:47 Government Funding Frustrations
• 6:43 Data-Driven RTO Management
• 11:12 Compliance Burdens for Small RTOs
• 19:18 Equitable Funding Models
• 29:18 Work Placement Payment Initiatives
• 38:31 Collaboration vs Competition

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

Welcome back to the RTO Superhero Podcast, where we're going to be covering all things that are important right now when it comes to the training industry, and, in particular, right now is the issues that we have around government funding around Australia. And I have with me co-host today, lauren Hollows, who has had many experiences in this area with her clients and what she's heard within the industry. So let's get to it, lauren. Welcome to the RTO Superhero Podcast and let's get started. What's been your experience so far with regards to government funding around Australia?

Speaker 2: 1:05

Yeah, thank you for having me back. Look, I mean, government funding is such an interesting space. It's incredibly challenging for RTOs. It requires so many additional processes and forms and knowledge of systems and things like that. So, you know, hats off to any RTO that manages multiple state funding contracts, right, it's very interesting to watch all of the ebbs and flows that occur in our industry and you know, like Queensland came up last year for funding.

Speaker 2: 1:40

So obviously we had a couple of RTOs reaching out to us and going, hey, can you help us put together these things? So we started looking at all the requirements and last year in order to get through round one, you had to have delivered 10 qualifications in that space in Queensland in that qualification in order to be able to apply. So we had a couple of RTOs that didn't meet the requirements and they were like, we'll put it forward anyway. Um, we had one RTO that delivered, had delivered the qualification in Queensland, um, and had multiple completions, but it was for international students and so, um, you know Queensland was like not eligible doesn't count, right.

Speaker 2: 2:22

We had another client who had delivered the same program in far regional wa to a aboriginal and torstrait islander first nations cohort. They had 80 completion rates, right, huge completion rates for job seeker cohorts, huge completion rates for regional cohorts, and again, just didn't count. Didn't count because it hadn't been done in Queensland. You know, vet DSS programs. So vets delivered secondary school programs with 95% completion rates, not interested in, you know, not interested because it wasn't delivered in Queensland. We were like, yeah, but we want to bring this to Queensland. Like you can see, we can do this and we can do this well, and we get great completion outcomes. And it was like, not so much. Wouldn't you like the same results?

Speaker 2: 3:18

Right, like if I'm an employer and someone's coming to me and going okay, I want to look at who I'm going to be giving out my funding to. Who am I going to pay for this particular service? And I've got someone that comes to me and they go well, I've delivered. I've delivered. You know, we got funded for a hundred places and we got 20 completions last year and now I've got this guy that goes, well, I got given a hundred places in WA and I completed 75% of them. Who am I going to pick? Right, I'm going to pick the people that have got the good outcomes and you'll be like well, there's obviously something that you guys are doing there. If you can replicate that here, then, absolutely like you're going to get the better outcomes, you're going to give me better bang for my buck, right? What's?

Speaker 1: 4:01

going on in these government departments when they can't like entrepreneurs as entrepreneurs, we we go. Yeah, I know exactly where I wouldn't want to invest my money what am I going to get for it?

Speaker 2: 4:14

like, if I'm going to give everyone five thousand dollars and someone's going to give me, you know, all of this, and this one's going to be like I'm going to give you this, but I'm going to give you this, I'm going to be like I'm going to, I want that right. I'm going to be like I want that Right, and I think that's that is. The problem. Is is like it's incredibly hard to set up a, you know, to set up a government funded program. And I know in our previous episode we were talking about like what does equitable funding look like? And you know, I don't know if it looks like, you know, school choice, where we go, okay, well, every student gets $10, dollars to go and spend on a vet qualification, right, and I think we've seen in the past how that can be rorted. So I understand the challenges of setting up a government funding program that is going to be equitable, that is going to be, you know, like nothing's rort proof, but like that is going to have sufficient barriers in place that we can ensure quality and things or maximize the chances of quality and things like that. But I think that you know, unfortunately, because there is just a lack of understanding and because we don't seem to do these things based on data and every state is so adamant about running things their own way as opposed to moving to any kind of nationally harmonized system. Um, you know it's, the dirty word of um, of vet funding, is that we unfortunately end up in a place whereby there's no guarantees, um, and so what we do see is we see a lot of like I've got a lot of RTO owners in their 60s that are just turning around and going. You know what? It's all too hard.

Speaker 2: 5:52

It used to be that when the international market went feral, right, we could rely on traineeships and apprenticeships. Or when the traineeships and apprenticeships went feral, we could rely on. You know, like the international market, it feels at the moment like there is just an assault and a lack of, just a lack of, like, any sort of baseline across the board. That I completely understand where RTOs come from, and there's some amazing RTOs that are out there that are now literally just going. We literally just can't rely on anyone or anything, and so we have to and we have.

Speaker 2: 6:34

So, therefore, we have to be able to do it all Like we've got to be able to have a bit of fee for service and a bit of government funding across a couple of different places and a bit of cry costs and stuff like that, and that then causes an RTO to really have like I mean to run an RTO that runs multiple funding contracts, fee-for-service institution-based programs, workplace programs and CRICOS. Holy Hannah, it's hard, it's a hard work. You've got to have a massive compliance team and I think this is why we're seeing a lot more RTOs kind of come together and so we're seeing, like you know, groups of RTOs that are operating with like five or six RTOs under like a parent company, because it's just kind of like we can't do all of this without having some sort of writing you know, yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 7:22

Um, and I think we're going to continue to see a lot more of that because, you know, for the mom and pop RTOs that do some really beautiful training, the amount of work that's associated with maintaining compliance now is just becoming to a point where it's not feasible for the vast majority of mom and pop RTOs to be able to continue to operate in that manner. You need to have a bigger company that's going to sit, you know, on top of you that's going to be able to help.

Speaker 1: 7:56

That's going to help you to manage that sort of thing, particularly with the major changes that we have with the new standards, in particular, when it comes to governance, continuous improvement and risk management. When it comes to governance, continuous improvement and risk management, there is a lot more work that's going to be involved with managing that, and I can see the reason why it's being added to the standards, because it certainly will raise the quality of education. But these small RTOs, I don't know how they're going to cope with all of the management of this, and that's why we're trying to build a system that's automated. So ComplyHub is a compliance management system where it's automated and it will be able to identify risks based on the data that you put into it. So, yeah, I just think that's a major one.

Speaker 1: 8:46

And then another side that came up for me then when, whilst you were talking, when it comes to how do we support equitable funding when it comes to TAFE and private RTOs? Private RTOs currently deliver 80% of the training, currently deliver 80% of the training. Tafe is 15%, so they deliver 15% of the training. Yes, the government most probably are wanting TAFE to deliver more training, but they don't have that capacity, they don't have the infrastructure, and then so they're stating the government's stating that it will be 100,000 fee-free places by 2027 each year, but we're already seeing massive cuts to private RTOs now Like that funding.

Speaker 1: 9:36

70% of that government funding is now going to TAFE and they don't have that infrastructure, whereas private RTOs already have that infrastructure, they already have the outcomes and they already have the completion ratings. That's where equitability should go. The equitable funding should go to those providers that have the outcomes, they have the completion ratings and they have the happiness outcomes. So where students and employers, the outcomes that the RTOs are getting, is based on that data that we've received. So, yeah, I definitely believe that that's where it should be equitably. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 10:43

Yeah, and I mean for those that don't know, new South Wales does actually track that. Every year, you know funded providers get a report on the satisfaction of the training that they've delivered, which is undertaken separately by New South Wales government, and if you receive a low rating, you have to have a meeting with your case manager and you have to discuss the reason why you received that. And you know you kind of get told well, you know you might not get your funding contract next year because you know your student satisfaction outcomes are not where they need to be and you know every state has different measures for that. Like you know, wa has got completion outcomes, like they've got completion benchmarks that RTOs are supposed to meet, based on either you know, or a qualification level. So you know again all of this. Like different states have got different mechanisms for this and you know, if the states ever chose to come together and actually have a discussion on, like, what aspects of their funding worked and what aspects didn't, you know we could definitely come up with a better system. I think one of the potentials to change that is when we start to see that, when we see our new AVATMIS system launch, which I think is going to be coming out next year. We've got new AVATMIS data that's going to be coming out. As part of that, there is a five-year plan to have all states harmonize their data, which is going look.

Speaker 2: 12:06

It's terrifying to me and it's interesting at the same time, having worked particularly with WA for a very long period. Every time we get a new state funding system that launches, I inevitably like inevitably my RTOs get screwed and like when the new system launches, you'll get something that's like oh, but this data has dropped out, so actually we're not going to pay you this month and we owe you, you owe us, you know, a hundred thousand dollars and it takes a couple of months to work out all the bugs and like everything works out okay eventually. But anytime a new government system comes out, I have visceral trauma Right. So I'm super excited to see some harmonisation of state data because I'm hoping that that will actually lead to good conversations happening between the states and hopefully a little bit more consistency.

Speaker 2: 13:03

I mean, queensland only pays upon completion. Wa pays 70% upon commencement of a unit of competency. New South Wales pays three payments over the course of a qualification, you know, for RTOs that have to navigate these sorts of things and there's actually not a lot of consultants out there that do a lot of work in the funding space because it changes so consistently and every system is so different. Like to try and find somebody who knows how to lodge a smart lodge on the smart and skilled e-portal. Um, you know, coordinate the lodgement between TAMS and you know know in WA and you know, run your prerequisite numbers in South Australia. Like you know they don't. They're just not out there.

Speaker 1: 13:53

It's really hard for RTOs trying to find those people, right, yeah yeah, We've helped on a few different states, but it's mainly individual on a few different states, but it's mainly individual RTOs that we've been working with for a long time, so we understand their RTO and their background.

Speaker 2: 14:11

But, yeah, each time we look at a new funding it's like, oh God, you've got to relearn everything, yeah, and like there's so many different, you know like every single one of them has different policies and procedures. They've all got different requirements for data reporting and things like that. So I think that trying to come to some sort of I mean at a very minimum agreement, getting the data for it will be great.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Further to that, um, you know, like in an ideal world we would start to get some consistency, like the amount of funding that a qualification gets across states.

Speaker 2: 14:47

How it can be three times a qualification in, you know, south Australia as it is in, you know, new South Wales is really strange.

Speaker 2: 14:57

Like I can understand, in WA we've got loading right and you've got loading in a lot of the states as well, so whereby, if you are providing something in the Pil as opposed to providing an nwa, the costs are different because, like, the costs are different, right, but I think we need to see, like to try and get some consistency, like just a little bit more consistency in like nominal hours, um, you know, and the base rates of funding for qualifications I, you know that is probably something rates of funding for qualifications I you know that is probably something that needs to be handed over more to, like the job skills agencies, jscs don't currently have any control over nominal hours or any like.

Speaker 2: 15:35

They don't get a lot of input on funding, and I think that that's probably where, hopefully, we want to see some changes over the next couple of years, because ultimately, at the moment. The people who are making the calls on funding don't understand the training that's occurring. They don't understand the diversity of what happens in the industries and everything like that, and so it needs to be handed more to industry to be making those calls and have a better structure, a nationwide structure, when it comes to government funding.

Speaker 1: 16:07

I think that would be a brilliant idea make it much easier, and comparing that data between different states and what works and what doesn't work and I think that's you know, that's part of that solution of when it comes to equitable funding is really looking at the different states and what models are working and what's not working. I, yeah, definitely agree with that. Now I want you to yeah, about funding.

Speaker 2: 16:32

I'm just really curious. So for you, with equitable funding, right, does equitable funding mean, like, every dollar that we spend in TAFE, we should be spending an equal dollar in private, or, you know, would you prefer to see more of a decision on, like on, you know, the student being able to decide where their dollar goes? Like, what does equitable funding look like? Like, if we came to you tomorrow and said, right, angela's going to decide what equitable funding looks like for our sector and we're going to put that in place, what does that look like for you?

Speaker 1: 17:07

I'm going to put my political hat on if I could wave a magic wand. I think equitable funding is based on outcomes. So what results have RTOs had? Private, public, enterprise, any type of RTO, what are their completion ratings? What are their satisfaction levels when it comes to the outcomes of what they're delivering? And I don't know whether we have a system to properly measure that right now. We've got our vet mis miss data and we've got quality indicators, but we need some sort of system that's more realistic with the outcomes. In particular, I've got a number of clients that deliver training and they do have an 80 to 90% employment rate, but at the moment we're not allowed to market that because that's under the standards.

Speaker 1: 18:06

we're not allowed to state what our employment rate is can't guarantee job outcomes, but they've got the data that backs it up to say, the their students have actually, uh, got a job out of the training that they delivered. If we tracked and measured that following course completion, what are the employment rates from that? And we should be tracking and measuring that as a national data as well, because you know ultimately where, when it comes to government funding, they're funding training to get people into jobs. Why aren't we tracking what percentage are getting jobs?

Speaker 2: 18:50

like so. So I guess one, sorry, I guess one option for that then would be to give everybody the funding contract no minimum amounts that were we're guaranteeing to you and then everything happens on kind of like a tni sort of a basis. Uh, so for those that aren't familiar with with new south wales, there's a tni press, or basically you do a training needs analysis and then you put forward and go right, well, this is, this is the program that we've got, this is how we've successfully delivered it before, this is the outcomes that we're looking for. And then the department goes okay, yep, cool, we'll fund you for that, right? Would that sort of a thing where literally, like, every RTO would get the funding contract and then it would literally be okay. But now we're're gonna work with you on, like, if you want to run a program, you've got to put it forward to us, you've got to see and we're going to look at. You know, have you fulfilled your promises before?

Speaker 1: 19:45

and I think it's their connections with, uh, job active providers they're called different names around australia but, um, basically those providers that are trying to place students into work, basically they're trying to get them a job. It's your connections with them, it's connections with industry, how you collaborating with industry and how you contextualising your training to meet those industry needs. And then it's going into your community. So, looking at your community and where are the skill shortages in your areas where you're delivering your training, and then what is the model that you've put together in order to meet that community need? Now, this might sound like a lot of work for a lot of RTOs, but I think they're a lot like.

Speaker 1: 20:33

I know, when I had my RTO, that's what I did. I worked with job active providers. I was actively meeting with them and asking them what type of training do you need and what are the outcomes that you want to achieve? And then I developed a program, a training and assessment strategy based on what were their requirements and what were their needs and their outcomes. And then I delivered training according to that and we got their funding so they would place students into our training because we had written it exactly what they wanted. And I think that's where you'll have a better outcome, and that's where I don't know how that aligns with equitable, but it's you're addressing the problem by developing a program that addresses that problem and be able to demonstrate the outcomes.

Speaker 2: 21:30

Yeah, and then I guess a lot of that then boils down to ensuring quality of it, just really boils down to the auditing of it, and I mean certainly within, like, within the funded space. Pretty much all RTOs are reporting monthly, right? I know one of the services that we do with our RTOs is we'll sit down on a monthly basis with them and go, okay, how many units do you have open, how long are your units being open for? What's the average time taking you to close? So, like, I've been working with one RTO recently and you know, initially when we came on board, it was taking them an average of about 400 days to close a unit.

Speaker 2: 22:08

And I'm going what the like? What's going on, guys? Right, and so, as we have been working with them, that's now come down in some, some of their programs, to 84 days, right, which is what we and I mean these are trained, mostly traineeship and apprenticeship programs which do tend to have like our long you know their longer open times, um, but you know, like they're not being paid if they're not finishing those every month we're monitoring those programs and we're going okay, well, you know what's the number, what's you know are the numbers coming down and everything like that.

Speaker 2: 22:37

And you know, the first couple of times we started doing this with RTOs and sitting there with the CEOs and managers and kind of going here is your data right. They were like this is amazing. And I was like I ain't it, like you know. But the shock of the RTOs kind of go and I'm like seriously, like I look at this stuff in my RTOs all the time, like I don't care what, like yes, I get my staff's reports and all that sort of stuff as to what I've done and you know how busy I am and all that sort of thing. But at the end of the day, right, data runs my life.

Speaker 2: 23:11

And I'm like how many units did we close? How many units did we open? You know like why is trainer a doing 30 of the opens and closes than trainer b is? Like what's going on there? You know like why does this trainer have, you know, eight, on average eight units open for student? I'm like no, we don't do we don't. We do three or four at most, no more than three or four units open at a time. It confuses and overwhelms students, get them to finish something before they open out something new. All of that data is available in people's systems and people just don't use it. And when we start using it, you know, all of a sudden rto's go. Oh, my god, like I'm like. Yes, look at this amazing tool for you to run your business right.

Speaker 1: 24:00

And even the data we're required to collect, like a vet miss data and quality indicators. You can utilise that to improve your practices as well.

Speaker 2: 24:06

For sure. Yeah, I mean, we've just been doing our quality indicators. They're obviously due next week. So you know, we've been prepping our RTOs quality indicator reports and, in addition to doing the quality indicator report, we also give them an overview of you know where everything is sitting at. So we don't just use the quality indicator reports, we use additional surveys, we use the complaints register, we utilize google reviews, we utilize facebook reviews, because a lot of rtos are doing a lot more of that sort of stuff nowadays as well.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Um, and I mean like the stuff that we pick up. Like you know, we went on to one rto and realize hey guys, you do realize, like you haven't had any goog, any positive google reviews in two years, you've got a student satisfaction rating of 90. The three students that were unhappy with you went straight onto Google and had a whinge about it. But like I've got 300 positive comments here, you know, from your students from this year, saying how freaking amazing your trainers are. No one's responded to the three negative Google comments, like Google reviews that have been put up. I'm like, what do you do, like you know, and there's so much and often that's where people are first going to go.

Speaker 2: 25:21

They're going to do a google search of your organization to find out facebook reviews, you know, insta ratings, all of this sort of stuff, like yeah, it's, you know, but but unfortunately, I do think there's just there's so many RTOs that don't know how to use their data, and you're right in that we're not collecting the data that we should be that post-employment, uh, that post-training employment stats. I mean, in an ideal world, are you employed when you graduate? Are you employed three months after you graduate? Are you employed six months after you graduate? Are you employed six months after you graduate? And is that in the same field, right? Um, you know, did the RTO help you.

Speaker 1: 26:02

Did RTO? Did the RTO help you to get that job? Yeah, yeah for sure, because there's a lot of RTOs that do yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 26:12

There is, like job I especially in qualifications where job placement is part of the overall training you know or, like you know, within the traineeship and apprenticeship space, if a trainee like I know, a lot of RTOs that advocate for the students to make sure that the employer is paying those fees. So that you know, if you're paying an apprentice $13 an hour and then you're forcing them to pay their own fees for their qualification like the amount of RTOs that I know that have stepped in and kind of gone oi, you're getting $8,000 for this kid to study with you. You're literally paying them $13 an hour. You're not going to have them. Like you are going to pay the fees for them. Like I'm sorry, you are going to pay the fees for them. Like I'm sorry, you are going to pay the fees for them. And I've had rtos that have literally turned around and gone. We're not providing the training to you unless you're going to be the one that pays fees. You're not making this kid pay the fees, right, but it's the rto that stepped in to advocate that.

Speaker 2: 27:06

It wasn't the asson who? I'll be honest, I think. I think the vast majority of assons are completely effing useless, um, even though their whole job is to advocate for students, right? Um, a lot of the times it is the rto that goes into advocate for them. I've had rtos where the students come and disclose that, like, the employer is abusing them, you know, like, and it's the rto that's stepped in, you know. Or where you know the student is completed and the employer is refusing to sign off on the student's trade certificate and the RTO has had to step in at risk to the RTO, right, and go to the government and be like, seriously, you know, like you, you know the ASIN and the State Department need to go and say to them this kid is competent, like this kid is competent, you have to start paying them as a proper trainee, right? Yeah, um, it happens in industry all the time and there's so much work that RTOs are doing that goes unrecognized um, I'm gonna do a sidestep here.

Speaker 1: 28:07

It's still to do with government funding. Did you hear that Albanese recently announced that work placement will be paid by the government to any student doing nursing or any nursing-related units within university and TAFE?

Speaker 2: 28:32

Yes, so this program was actually launched over a year ago actually might have been two years ago now but, it is now in place. Now it's. It's now actually yeah, it's now actually come into fruition, but it wasn't going to be tape, it was just going to be university it was.

Speaker 2: 28:47

it was just going to be for the universities. It's now just going to it's it's. It still will not be for any um private provider students that are studying. It obviously won't support any of the international students to some extent and actually I'm not sure about that If they're an international student in university, they're not going to be able to study, Are they?

Speaker 1: 29:07

covered under this program? Oh, I don't know. That's an interesting question. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 29:12

I'm going to have to take a look at that.

Speaker 1: 29:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:14

Guys, we're going to find out and we're going to drop it in the comments. Because if they are funding, if they refuse to fund a student who is enrolled with a private provider who is an Australian citizen, but they will fund an overseas student studying it in the internet in in a university, I will, I will call, I will, I will call it, I will call it. Absolutely, I will 100% denote that. Um, but yeah, I mean, look, I look for students that are studying in qualifications, um, that are super desperately needed by industry. I'm all for providing some support for placement Like those placements can be hard.

Speaker 2: 29:59

Those placements, you know you often have to do weeks and weeks at a time, so you've got to give up your income in order to be able to go through and do this. And to me, if it's in an area that are like that, we desperately need support. So, you know, nursing some of the trades you know, aged care, things like that, where you know we need more nurses, we need more carers. You know we need more tradies. I'm honestly for putting more money into all of those sorts of things. We need more tradies. I'm honestly for putting more money into all of those sorts of things, um, because, like our nation desperately needs them, we desperately need more of these qualified people. I think for any of these shortages.

Speaker 2: 30:40

You know it should be about. You know the like. If it's in that particular area that we need, then let's like, let's fund it, fund it. I fully see the importance of the arts and everything like that, but if we have a limited bucket of funding, then at this particular point in our country, looking at where the world is and looking at the big challenges that we have, looking at the big challenges that we have, we should be putting money into whatever it takes to get more nurses, doctors, engineers, tradies, you know, age carers. That's what we need. People working as right. Like so the more people we can get doing that, and we need trainers who are able to teach people how to do that. So, like, that's where we should be putting our money into right is getting those things. Yeah, you know we've done stupid shit all the time and I don't understand why.

Speaker 1: 31:43

We're great at wasting money. It's also been noted that there's a high dropout rate for students who have to undertake work placement because they can't afford it. They can't afford to leave their other job while they're doing work placement. I know my son. He's completing RN, he's doing a university degree as a registered nurse and every time he had to go do work placement he was poor. He couldn't pay for his bills because he had to do his work placement and leave his paying job whilst he did that and that causes a very high dropout rate. We see the same when it comes to AIN, which is the assistant in nursing, which is a lot of the aged care, community services and disabilities. We see the same thing. They have to drop out or they can't complete their work placement requirements because they've got to get a paid job.

Speaker 2: 33:02

Yeah, I mean, and then a lot of them are just unfortunately in a position whereby they're going to be doing their placement during the day and they're going to be working a second job and a third job nights and weekends. So I will. I did just do a quick search and it does look like international students are not eligible. So I will say there was some government rationality I did the same.

Speaker 1: 33:25

So for 1 July it's only for domestic students, not international, and it's teaching, midwifery and social work placements yeah and look we need.

Speaker 2: 33:37

I mean, do we need more actual teachers? Like is, is that a thing that we need? Is that that's because of the high dropout right?

Speaker 1: 33:46

yeah, yeah, yeah. And school teachers are the same when they do work placement, that's when they get a high dropout rate oh, yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 33:53

I mean it's because you've got to do it for a whole term, like you know. So it's it's three months. Um, I did my work placement. I was pregnant with mikey, um, so I, yeah, I literally I was smashing it at that particular point in time. I doubled up my work schedule to try and pop out the placement before I popped out the kid. Um, but yeah, like it's, it's very full-on. So I do support it in areas that we, we do desperately need it. I just think that we're just we're so we're really silly with how we use the austral, like with how we use australian dollars, like our government just doesn't and it, look, it's, it's irrelevant, like, look, I'm not going to say it's, it's just labor, because it's labor, it's liberal, it's.

Speaker 2: 34:40

You know, it is unfortunate that I don't think it matters who's in government we have like are the people that we have that come and work with the from government in the vet sector. The last person that we had that like seemed to me to be really passionate about helping all providers was simon birmingham. Um, I loved him as a minister. He was super approachable. He had a very good level of respect for both the public and the private systems. Um, he was really willing to listen like super willing to listen and understand what the problems and the private systems and listened. He was really willing to listen like super willing to listen and understand what the problems and the challenges were.

Speaker 1: 35:18

And he actually understood education too?

Speaker 2: 35:21

Yeah, for sure, but he was the last minister that we had, and I'm definitely dating myself in saying that. But, like you know, since then we haven't. And we have way too many um, both federal and state ministers who just have such a poor like the words dodgy rto just falls out of their mouth, and anytime anything's positive, it's about TAFE, and I'm like there's just so much, there is so much good that is done in our sector. Stop talking about the problem. We all know the problems are there.

Speaker 2: 35:58

Ascor is there dealing with the problems? I mean, how many qualifications have they cancelled Like they are taking and RTOs have been shut down. Seriously, at the moment, right, like we've got RTOs being given $20,000 fines for not submitting their AVAT-MIS. Right, at the moment, I've had so many RTOs approach me and be like we got a $20,000 fine. We don't have any students and I'm like oh dolls. Right, we've got RTOs being cancelled the moment that they don't do a year's worth of training. Right, like they've literally registered and like a year out they're like you haven't submitted your avid, you've submitted in your event.

Speaker 1: 36:37

So therefore we've taken you out to your registration from you. I'm like oh, meanwhile we've had we've been had no government funding, we haven't been able to find any students, and now we've got a new legislative change and we've got to update all of our documents. So we're a little busy right now yeah, new training packages coming out.

Speaker 2: 36:50

There's a whole new unit format coming out for those training packages. We're getting rid of performance elements and criteria like elements and performance criteria. After that we're going to have the AVEMIS change. After that we're going to have this supposed AQTF change, which is actually probably never going to happen. But whatevs right, like RTOs, deal with a lot guys. Government seriously give us a fucking break, like just a tiny one. We work really hard.

Speaker 1: 37:16

We work really really hard and we're trying to do our best um, yeah, we're, like you know, to get automatic with uh registration cancelled just because you haven't had the dark, you haven't had the students, and not even asking why and what, what is the background?

Speaker 2: 37:34

yeah, it's just gone, gone bye that came to me when they got those letters a couple of weeks ago, as to like oh we know that you've put in your application. We know you've been waiting for 18 months. You're now going to have to agree to the new standards or we'll give you back your eight thousand dollars. And I had providers sitting there going we've, we've paid. We've paid seventy five thousand dollars because we have to have a facility that we haven't been able to use.

Speaker 2: 38:03

Like eight thousand dollars means nothing to us and all the resources and the trainers and assessors $50,000 in this process and I'm sitting there going no, no, I know I understand they don't care. Like this is. You know they don't care? Sorry, they don't care.

Speaker 1: 38:21

Yeah, unfortunately, the government do not know how to run a business and I often see this where they just don't understand how an RTO runs and that, in particular, a private RTO where you've got to meet all of the other legislative requirements when it comes to industrial relations and WHS and you know go on and on and on insurance and all that sort of stuff and how they've got to manage all of that, as well as the marketing, as well as you know building a brand for their RTO. They don't understand like, yes, compliance is a component, but we cannot survive on compliance alone as an RTO. There is so much more that we need to do.

Speaker 2: 39:09

Yeah, like the only equipment, like. So I keep chickens, keep chickens right, because I live in far north queensland. I'm a crazy person who lives far now, so I keep chickens and like every time I introduce like new chickens, right, we've got like these little baby chickens that are running around and they just get the kick like the crap kicked out of them right by like all of the other chickens. So it's always like the tiniest chicken that gets the hardest time and I'm always like you're like my latios, like you just, but they just keep on running, like they keep on running and they keep on trying, right, but I'm like you're just getting the crap kicked out of me, you poor little things, and you just keep going.

Speaker 1: 39:46

Oh, that's such a good analogy. I like that. Some people are so fudge. So yeah, before we close, I'm going to ask a question. Okay, is the narrative around TAFE as being the backbone of the vet sector outdated?

Speaker 2: 40:10

Look okay. So it's a hard. That's a hard one for me because I know in my heart you cannot take away tafe right and you cannot take away private rtos. But I feel, like you know, when we say the backbone right, like if you have the bones there but you don't have the muscle to like then connect and the tissues to connect all of the bones, it it's useless. And that's exactly what private and public are like. Like you 100% need both. There is great, amazing training that happens in both private and public RTOs. We need public and private RTOs. It's an ecosystem.

Speaker 2: 40:49

But exactly right, like without both of them being healthy, we start to see problems, and my concern is is that I totally understand that for years there's been some real concerns that the numbers in TAFE are dwindling and everything like that. I don't think it means that we switch everything and this is what I like. This is what governments in general do and again, it's it's, you know, it's it's. It doesn't matter what the government is, um, it swings like super far in one direction and so at the moment they're kind of going, oh, tafe's in trouble, like push everything towards that. And then you start to see the fact that, like, our little private sector starts to dwindle and die and we see beautiful little businesses that unfortunately just turn around and go.

Speaker 2: 41:37

I'm out like it's all too hard, and then what happens inevitably is that the money then dries up.

Speaker 2: 41:45

Tape falls over because it can't cope Tape falls over because it can't cope and you know, the industries start to get really shitty because they're not getting the training that they need. And then it swings right. And then the government goes oh shit, and the government swings. The only time I've seen it where it works well is where industry chooses to self-correct. And so my advice to RTOs at the moment is go and take your programs and go and talk with New South Wales TAFE and see if you can work out third party arrangements, because I know they do it right, all of the TAFEs do it. And my advice if you're New South Wales TAFE and you're sitting here and you're going, holy shit, we've got a lot of money, we don't have the trainers, we don't have the facilities, go and talk with the RTOs in the regional areas where you don't have the trainers and where you don't have the facilities and you already have it organized.

Speaker 2: 42:36

Progress with those private RTOs. Guys. The only way that we're going to make this work like if we get, we're relying on government to make this work. It ain't going to happen, right. That daddy government is not going to fix this problem, right? Only way we're going to fix this problem is if we go out and we implement the solutions ourselves, and that is. It's not about private versus public, it's not about TAFE versus whatever. We all need to be working together to help the students and industry get the outcomes that we need we need to collaborate together to have a better education just like you know, rto consultants don't need to war.

Speaker 2: 43:11

We can all fight together like there's plenty of RTOs to save. That's right. You know, it's exactly the same in the RTO market.

Speaker 1: 43:18

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love how we can collaborate and be able to discuss what's happening in the industry sector, having a total understanding of how it all works. And still, we're not enemies. We collaborate, and that's what the government needs to do with private providers as well as TAFE. It should be a collaboration where and I'm going to go back to that equitable funding, the equitable funding. How can we work together? I think that's the answer.

Speaker 2: 43:55

Yeah, 100 so there we go. We just solved the vet crisis. Guys, take our advice and everything will be fine. And what's next? I'd like to talk about world peace yes, maybe we'll solve that as well.

Speaker 1: 44:14

Yeah, I have a solution to that as well. Thank you very much, Lauren, for joining me again today in the RTO Superhero Podcast. It's been fantastic talking with you again and I love how we get to have this conversation and people get to join our conversation and hear two consultants experienced in the training industry talking shit pretty much.

Speaker 2: 44:39

I love it. I love it, let's do it again soon?

Speaker 1: 44:43

yes, certainly. Thank you very much everyone for joining us on the rto superhero podcast and I look forward to catching up with you again soon. Please check the show notes for the changeorg link for the petition. The more we can get to sign it, the more we have a voice when it comes to what happens in our industry sector. Thank you, bye for now. Awesome, that was good.