Australia's new measures to regulate,improve vocational education, training sector

New Delhi, Dec. 9 (ANI): Australia's High Commissioner to India Peter Varghese today welcomed the decision by The Council of Australian Governments (which brings together the leaders of Australia's federal, state and territory Governments) to create a new, independent national regulator for the vocational education and training (VET) sector.

The regulator will be responsible for the registration and audit of registered training providers across Australia.

More than 1.7 million students and thousands of Australian businesses have a stake in improved quality and better outcomes from the VET sector. These reforms will help to deliver a mobile workforce with common skills standards.

It will mean employers can have confidence in the skills and qualifications of their employees, wherever they are trained in the country. It will also mean employees can invest in their education and training with an assurance about the quality and transferability of their qualifications.

This step will build a stronger national training system and bring Australia closer to an inter-connected tertiary education sector. A framework for the new body will be agreed by the end of May 2010 with the regulator beginning operation from 2011.

The regulator will be a Commonwealth statutory authority and will have responsibility for all VET providers that enrol international students.

These reforms will help cement Australia's international reputation as a high quality provider of Vocational Education and Training - with a strong, national regulatory regime. (ANI)