Yes @ The Jackal Not a good time to take the risk. I was...

Yes @ The Jackal
Not a good time to take the risk. I was contemplating buying some but change my mind as it seems it's going from bad to worse.

Top directors buying shares @ $0.28.
Is this sign of confidence or forced raising of funds to stay afloat?
CEO trowing over $1 M if he would really need few millions of shares. He has tens of millions already.

The education sector is for major changes not having issues. The major issue is most likely with Productivity Partners and reasons for not receiving payment.

My understanding was that SIT is expecting over 40 M and now is 35 M.

After reading story in AFR, I am more convinced that Captain Cook College is been investigated by ASQA and ACCC.

No announcement of it from Site but AGM would be a great place to ask and get clarification.

It is also quite possible that final reconciliation of outstanding payment was finalised but is on hold due to possible investigation.

According to AFR story, some of RTO's (after being paid) were forced to refund millions of dollars and some are already into administration.

Where will SIT  get money from if Productivity Partners will face the same fate? not from shareholders.

Once you read below story, it will explain my fear of what could happened if ACCC is involved.

I would appreciate if someone can ask the question of ASQA and ACCC during AGM and post SIT answer on HC.



We got our fingers burnt," says Patrick McKendry, chief executive of private college Careers Australia.
That's some understatement. This week the consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced it had an enforceable undertaking from Careers Australia which would see it lose $160 million because of its "unconscionable conduct" and "false and misleading representations" in signing students up to the federal government's now-notorious tuition fee loan scheme, VET FEE-HELP.

The company, owned by private equity firm White Cloud Capital, was one of the major beneficiaries of the loan scheme which was originally designed to give job skills to young Australians by paying for their tuition fees. But due to business greed, political inertia and bureaucratic fumbling a large amount of the $6.2 billion spent on VET FEE-HELP since it began in 2009 paid fees for students who never completed their courses or never benefited from them.
Careers Australia was one of the biggest beneficiaries. In 2015 it collected $229 million from VET FEE-HELP, more than any other college. Now it is revealed to be the first college from which the government has succeeded in getting a large amount of money back.
Under the scheme which funnels the loans for students through the colleges there was exponential growth in enrollments.

In a process overseen by the ACCC, Careers Australia cancelled over 12,000 enrolments from students who did not complete their courses and refunded their fees to the federal government. This resulted in the company handing back $44.5 million and not claiming another $110 million it would have received had the students remained enrolled and continued studying.

Careers Australia is likely to cancel more enrolments, which will lead to more repayments to the government. McKendry says it's up to $4 million more, bringing the total loss to the company to near $160 million.

But the damage doesn't end there. This amount only refers to the August 1, 2013 to March 31, 2015 period which was scrutinised by the ACCC.

McKendry says that further repayments have been made to the government for enrolments which have been cancelled in the 14 months since then. He won't say how much, except that it's not as high as the $44.5 million repayment already acknowledged.

But burnt fingers and all, McKendry is still in his job and Careers Australia, a very large college with 22,000 students, most of whom are not using VET FEE-HELP, is still operating. Luckily for the company the ACCC decided not to be tougher on them after it admitted breaching consumer laws.
McKendry says the company reported itself to the ACCC in mid-2015. "Careers Australia have been very co-operative," says ACCC chairman Rod Sims. "They weren't quite as bad as the four we took to court."

Those four - Phoenix Institute, Empower Institute (not to be confused with the similar named Empower College), the Australian Institute of Professional Education, and Unique International College – also received huge amounts of student loan money and are facing court action in which the ACCC is seeking the return of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Commonwealth. Phoenix's parent, Australian Careers Network, went into administration in March.

Non-existent ethical standards
By any measure the VET FEE-HELP affair is one of the biggest scandals in government in recent years, caused by poor policy design, bad contract management and non-existent ethical standards.
Much damage has been done: to taxpayers who have seen billions of dollars wasted, to the reputation of the private college industry and, worst of all, to tens of thousands of vulnerable and disadvantaged students.
The VET FEE-HELP scheme was originally announced by the Howard government, just before it lost power in 2007. But it had bipartisan support and began as a modest program in 2009 under the Rudd government.
Its purpose was to fund people to get diploma level qualifications by loaning them money to pay their tuition fees, very similar to the how the long-established HECS-HELP scheme pays for students to go to university.
Under the scheme, the nearly 300 private colleges and TAFEs which are registered for VET FEE-HELP are able to have the federal government to pay them the fees for students' tuition. This amount, plus a 20 per cent loan fee, must be repaid by the student through the tax system once they earn above a threshold – currently about $54,000 a year.
Use of the loan scheme grew slowly. In 2012 it gave $325 million to education providers. But as some private colleges realised it was a ticket to riches the money paid out grew exponentially. Education providers received $699 million in 2013, $1.8 million in 2014 and a massive $3 billion in 2015.
They ruthlessly exploited the flaws in the scheme's design. Colleges aggressively marketed diploma courses to students and were able to tell students they could get a diploma for no upfront cost. Often it was never explained to the student that they would owe the government a debt.
There were also no caps on the tuition fee levels which colleges could set. Not surprisingly, fees rose to astronomical heights, all funded through the VET FEE-HELP loan scheme which students would have to pay back.
Fee escalation
For example, the average fee for a VET FEE-HELP student to do a diploma of salon management rose to $32,941. This compared to only $6,330 for student doing the same qualification from a college or TAFE with NSW government-subsidised place. A full bachelor degree in nursing or education at any public university only costs $18,768.

"The price gouging has been scandalous," says Martin Riordan, chief executive of TAFE Directors Australia, whose TAFE college members used VET FEE-HELP, but in a responsible way.
While the costs of the scheme were rising rapidly, Canberra seemed oblivious to the risk. In 2012 the Gillard government made it easier for colleges to utilise VET FEE-HELP, ending the requirement that it be used only for diplomas that were a pathway to university.
Then, even though shady practices by some colleges were known in the industry by 2013, it took the Abbott government until the end of 2014 to begin its crackdown on unscrupulous colleges.
"I think it's surprising that it took so long for the [education] department to react," says Peter Noonan, an education expert who is a professorial fellow at the Mitchell Institute.
"I don't understand why the department wasn't monitoring the level of fees being charged, which were manifestly excessive."