The Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) is the national regulatory body for the vocational education and training (VET) sector. ASQA’s primary role is to protect students and ensure that they receive high-quality training from registered training organisations (RTOs).

ASQA has a range of service standards that it strives to meet, including:

• Providing clear and timely communication
• Making fair and transparent decisions
• Acting with integrity, professionalism and respect
• Being open and accountable
• Providing efficient and effective services.

However, recent reports have suggested that ASQA’s decision-making processes are often slow and bureaucratic, resulting in unrealistic timeframes for RTOs. This can create significant problems for RTOs, particularly small businesses, who may not have the resources to wait for a decision.
Addition to scope

ASQA’s unrealistic timeframes for adding new courses to its scope of registration are a major problem for providers.

The process for adding a new course to ASQA’s scope of registration is needlessly complicated and takes far too long. It can often take up to 6 months for ASQA to process an application, during which time the provider is unable to offer the course.

This is a major problem for providers, as it limits their ability to respond to market demand and offer new courses in a timely manner. It also puts them at a competitive disadvantage compared to other providers who are not subject to the same delays.

ASQA needs to streamline its process for adding new courses to its scope of registration, and reduce the timeframe to a matter of weeks, not months. This would allow providers to be more responsive to market demand and offer new courses in a timely manner.

It would also level the playing field with other providers who are not subject to the same delays.

ASQA’s slow decision-making process is a major problem for the VET sector. It is essential that ASQA improves its processes so that RTOs can continue to provide high-quality training to students.