VET News

Things Just Got a Whole Lot Better

Fees and charges are being cut for students and educators to support the COVID-19 economic recovery. The Government will be:

• waiving the Tuition Protection Levey for the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) and VET Student Loans (VSL) program at a cost to Government of $6.3 million
• investing $6.3 million in funding to the Tuition Protection Service to ensure student protections are maintained
• extending the FEE-HELP loan fee reprieve for private higher education students to 30 June 2021, and
• extending the VSL fee reprieve for students at VSL approved institutions until 30 June 2021.

Minister for Education, Dan Tehan, said "We are supporting educators with targeted support that provides immediate relief so they can continue to provide high-quality education and training while maintaining jobs."

There is further good news in that additional funding is being provided to support 12,000 new places across universities next year and beyond.  Minister Tehan said the additional places would give more Australians the opportunity to learn new skills to help them become more job-ready.  

"We are doing this in recognition of the challenges faced by the Year 12 class of 2020, who have endured a final year of school like no other, and those who have lost their jobs and who need to retrain and reskill to find another" Mr Tehan said.

Minister Tehan has also welcomed the endorsement of the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment of the Government’s Job-ready Graduates legislation and has announced new measures to strengthen the Job-ready Graduates package in response to feedback from the sector.

“The Committee majority has endorsed our reforms that will create 100,000 more university places for Australian students, increase support for regional students and regional universities, strengthen the relationship between universities and industry and make degrees cheaper for students in areas of expected job growth,” Mr Tehan said.  "I look forward to the support of the Senate in passing the Job-ready Graduates legislation to give more Australians the opportunity to benefit from a university education." Mr Tehan continued .  "Australia’s economic recovery from COVID-19 will be built on an educated and highly-skilled workforce that these reforms will help produce.”

The Government also released a discussion paper on the National Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund (NPILP) for public consultation which sets out the plan to distribute $900 million over four years in block grants to universities to support engagement with higher education institutions and industry.   You can access the consultation paper here.  Submissions are open until 11.59pm AEDT on Friday 30 October 2020.  Please send expressions of interest to JobReadyGrads@dese.gov.au.

• Minister's Media Release: Further support for higher education and VET
• Minister's Media Release: Additional higher education places for Australians in 2021
• Minister's Media Release: Senate Committee backs Job Ready graduates
• Job-ready Graduates package - Department of Education, Skills and Employment
• Job-ready Graduates Package discussion paper
• Minister's Media Release: Funding guarantee for universities from 2021
• National Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund (NPILP) Consultation Paper

Date posted Oct 1, 2020