[Peetwo]

The TAFE South Oz saga continues -

Courtesy Cap'n Wannabe, via the Oz:

Training scandals stretch to aviation

Parafield Airport’s flight training school

• John Ross
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 6, 2017
  

Two scandals at Adelaide’s Parafield Airport have raised fears that the training loans debacle has infiltrated aviation, potentially endangering passengers and dashing the career dreams of would-be pilots and maintenance specialists.

On Saturday, The Weekend Australian revealed that a “serious training bungle” at TAFE SA’s aviation training campus had forced the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to suspend parts of the licences of about 90 aircraft maintenance engineers.

While details of the failure have not been disclosed, students blamed fast-tracking and incorrect documentation of practical components of the training in an effort to graduate as many as possible.

Today, The Australian reports that another college based at the airport faces closure over an audit finding that it misled students and regulators, and profiteered from state and federal training funding schemes.

The Australian Skills Quality Authority investigation found that Bruce Hartwig Flying School had issued students “multiple contradictory transcripts”. ASQA’s report suggests the school failed to establish students’ capacity to undertake the training, denied them access to vital study resources and blamed their inability to progress on “learning difficulties”.

Three former students have applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for the cancellation of debts — understood to be about $90,000 each — accrued under the VET FEE-HELP loans scheme.

They are understood to have been part of a class of 23 students who enrolled in late 2013, none of whom passed. Their requests for the college to cancel the debts were denied after reviews that dragged on for months.

South Australian senator Nick Xenophon took up the students’ cause during an estimates hearing last October. He told The Australian he had “serious concerns” about the treatment of students who had amassed huge debts under VET FEE-HELP.

He said the new revelations suggested a “broader issue” around aviation schools. “It’s such a high-profile, glamorous career, but people just don’t get work out of it.”

Some engineers affected by the TAFE SA bungle said it had cost them up to $1000 a week in wages. Others said they were in danger of missing out on job openings or promotions.

South Australian opposition spokesman David Pisoni called on the state government to conduct a full audit of TAFE SA processes and qualifications “to ensure this failure isn’t being repeated in other courses”.

Greens MP Tammy Franks, who was involved in two recent vocational education inquiries, warned the aviation training scandal was “likely to be the tip of the iceberg”.
Bruce Hartwig Flying School did not respond to The Australian’s requests for comment.

The ASQA investigation report suggests it played two funding schemes off against each other, incorrectly claiming money from both VET FEE-HELP and South Australia’s Skills for All scheme.

It had taught students certificate-level qualifications after enrolling them in an advanced diploma, with their hefty tuition fees covered by VET FEE-HELP — which is only available to students at diploma level and above. Meanwhile it had claimed state government subsidies for certificate training, even though it was not authorised to teach the certificates.

The school was an approved provider under the first six months of the VET Student Loans scheme that replaced VET FEE-HELP. A report last month found it had attracted almost $220,000 in loans and no students had passed any subjects. The school was left off the new approved provider list commencing in July.

---

&..

Air school crash left trainee pilots with sky-high tuition debts

Parafield Airport flight training school.

• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 6, 2017
  
• [size=undefined]JOHN ROSS
  
  Higher Education reporter
  Sydney
  @JohnRoss49
  [img=0x0]https://i1.wp.com/pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/87cd1c5a9ea9d7fe70ed0978bfe815ea/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]MICHAEL OWEN
  
  SA Bureau Chief
  Adelaide
  @mjowen
  [img=0x0]https://i1.wp.com/pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/30516814f413e39639e1d8a8f9493a05/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img][/size]
  

An aviation training scandal in South Australia has ensnared would-be pilots as well as aircraft maintenance engineers, with a private flying college adjoining a TAFE SA campus at Parafield Airport fighting moves to close it over multiple regulatory breaches.

Bruce Hartwig Flying School has commenced proceedings in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to overturn the national ­vocational training regulator’s May decision to cancel its registration. An investigation by the Australian Skills Quality Authority found the school taught courses it was not authorised to provide; gave contradictory documen­tation to regulators; and incorrectly claimed training funds from the federal and state governments.

The school also misled students about the requirements of the advanced diploma of aviation, issued them with “multiple contradictory transcripts” and blamed students’ “learning difficulties” when they failed to complete the course.

The AAT is processing appli­cations by three former Bruce Hartwig students seeking to expunge debts understood to exceed $80,000 each. The Australian understands they were among 23 students enrolled in late 2013 who did not pass after paying exorbitant tuition fees.

Debts were amassed under the now-scrapped VET FEE-HELP training loans scheme, which absorbed more than $8 billion of taxpayer funds and left thousands of students with massive debts.

Aviation courses were a key driver of this excess. Among the 96 students who accumulated $99,000-plus debts last year, while the program was supposedly being wound down, the most expensive course was a single subject from an aviation diploma at $45,389. The school did not respond to The Australian’s requests for comment. It was established in the 1960s in regional South Australia before relocating to Parafield, north of Adelaide.

It is believed it enrolled 25 to 30 students each year in courses costing upward of $90,000. The school claims its “unblemished” safety record has given it longevity at its base at Parafield Airport, where 17 other flying schools have closed their doors in recent decades. In May, its chief pilot, Paul Daw, died with two others in a plane crash in South Australia’s Riverland.
 
Parafield is also the base of TAFE SA’s licensed aircraft maintenance engineer training, where about 90 students have had parts of their licences suspended after an audit by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

As revealed by The Weekend Australian, South Australian Skills Minister Susan Close was informed of the scandal in late April.


Although the minister “sought immediate and comprehensive advice”, the public was never told.

Dr Close said legal advice was being considered on TAFE’s lia­bility. “The federal minister knows. If the minister (responsible) for CASA had felt (it) was necessary to go public, he was perfectly entitled to do that, but has not,” she told ABC radio.

Federal Transport Minister Darren Chester said the Weatherill government was accountable for the delivery of all courses at TAFE SA. “CASA’s role is to provide syllabus requirements and audit the course,” Mr Chester said.

“TAFE SA did not deliver the syllabus they agreed to deliver, to the required standard,’’ he said

Typical Chester - spin it around to politics and blame the Weatherill Labor government but you have got to wonder about CASA's oversight of this whole schmozzle...


MTF...P2