Six of the top 10 organisations running Australian private colleges — which together received more than $620 million in government-funded student loans last year — are under regulatory scrutiny or have been accused of questionable quality or marketing practices.
Four of the six colleges — the College of Creative Design and Arts, Cornerstone Investment, Study Group Australia and the Australian Institute of Professional Education — are the subject of regulatory audits.
One of the colleges, Unique International, is the subject of legal action by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and has been deregistered. A sixth, ACTE, which operates Evocca College, is set to be the subject of a possible class action by hundreds of students for alleged breaches of consumer and credit laws. Despite the many hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to the six organisations in government-funded VET FEE-HELP student loans, together they had just 1874 students finish their courses last year.
College of Creative Design and Arts, which runs colleges across Queensland under several brands, including Keystone College, had just 32 students complete its courses last year. It had a progress rate of 11.7 per cent, but received more than $35m in government-funded VET FEE-HELP loans last year and had 3576 students enrolled.
Those students were charged hefty course fees. Keystone’s six-month diploma of business costs $13,990, while the same course at TAFE Queensland costs $4900.
Several of the company’s directors are involved in running numerous training companies, including consultancies that show other businesses how to become registered training organisations.
New Zealand-born Aloi Burgess, 40, is one of the college’s directors and also a director of at least 10 other training-related companies, according to ASIC records. Mr Burgess owns four properties in Queensland.
One of the companies he directs, National Training and Development, is a student brokerage company, which was accused last year of signing up an intellectually disabled student to a training course outside Centrelink. The student was enrolled at Aspire College, of which Mr Burgess is also a director, in two courses costing $30,000.
ACL ( Australian Christian Lobby) are up to no good again
The Australian “Christian” Lobby is dedicating its time and energy to campaigning against an anti-bullying program in schools. WWJD, indeed. Sorry everyone, Jesus can’t turn that fish into more fish so you don’t starve; he’s too busy protecting bullies.
There are 450 schools participating in the Safe Schools Coalition program, which has been designed to assist schools in constructing a safe and supportive environment for same-sex attracted and gender diverse students. The ACL is so horrified by the thought of an inclusive and supportive environment that they have immediately encouraged people to sign a petition calling for the program to be axed, and to send emails to their MPs (many of which SHOCKINGLY turned out to be homophobic and transphobic, who could ever have guessed?)
Read more on SBS on line
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