The objective of the tuition assurance requirements is to protect students if their provider ceases to provide the course of study they are undertaking. Your organisation must meet tuition assurance requirements for all the courses it offers that are eligible for loan schemes.
To provide tuition assurance, organisations must offer students the following choices:
the course assurance option—which allows a student to enrol in a similar course that leads to the same or a comparable qualification at another provider
the tuition fee repayment option—which allows a student to receive a refund of upfront tuition fees they may have paid for any units they were enrolled in at the time the course ceased to be delivered
Given the court actions announced by ACO and ACCC they will be in the contingent liabilities by now I would think?
(I would've had the the same question for VET of course.)
And from the National Standards for RTOs under which ASQA regulates most of ACO.
7.3. Where the RTO requires, either directly or through a third party, a prospective or current learner to prepay fees in excess of a total of $1500 (being the threshold prepaid fee amount), the RTO must meet the requirements set out in the Requirements for Fee Protection in Schedule 6.
So the question for the federal Department of Education is, have ACO (and others) been able to ignore this Standard on the premise that VET FEE Help loans are not a prepayment in excess of $1500?
1. This is all so material to ACO especially with the bland announcements of court action;
2. And at the risk of being a repeating record, it underscores the need for a Commission of Inquiry to find out what has gone so wrong and more importantly why?
ACO Price at posting:
$3.43 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
