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Update via Friday's the Oz:

TAFE SA vows to fix Parafield aircraft engineer training bungle

Ken Cannane of the Aviation Maintenance Repair and Overhaul Association. Picture: Renee Nowytarger\

• Michael Owen, Annabel Hepworth
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 8, 2017
  

Executives at embattled TAFE SA say they are determined the ­organisation will remain as one of four training centres in Australia for licensed aircraft maintenance engineers, despite a serious bungle that has left students in limbo.

About 90 students have had parts of their licences suspended after an audit in April by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority found students at the Parafield Airport campus were not assessed to the correct standards and exams had raised questions as to whether they were taught the right skills. An ongoing CASA investigation is expected to be completed this month.

TAFE SA executive director of education Brian Rungie told The Australian that the issues, mainly around administration, identified by CASA were “critical in this environment”. He said the “training itself was where it needed to be, but we couldn’t demonstrate it”.

Mr Rungie insisted TAFE SA’s aviation training, currently suspended, would continue.

“We have students from all over the country and internationally,” he said.

“We have apologised to the students. This is not who we are ... we will continue to work with our students, the industry and CASA.

“TAFE SA is committed to staying within the aviation space as one of the training providers supporting South Australia both now and going forward, and nat­ionally. We need to ensure we drive that quality agenda and make sure students get the right experience.”

Mr Rungie said there were gaps in TAFE SA’s record keeping and they had accepted no new students since the audit in late March/early April.

The situation comes amid concerns about a looming shortage of trained maintenance workers and amid calls for funding for engineering apprentice training.

Aviation Maintenance Repair and Overhaul Association director Ken Cannane said the licensed aircraft maintenance engineers in general aviation was an ageing cohort.

“We need to get the younger people in and give them the experience before these blokes retire,” Mr Cannane said.

An issue for industry is that CASA part 66, which sets out the requirements for aircraft maintenance engineer licences, is not fully harmonised with the European Aviation Safety Agency system, which can cause problems getting the license recognised overseas.

CASA is looking at the issue as part of its review of part 66.

Regional Aviation Association of Australia chief executive Mike Higgins said he wanted to see funding for the training, which ­relies now on state funding to be supplemented by the federal government to ensure adequate and consistent funding is available nationally.

TAFE SA operates a “maintenance training organisation” under approvals issued by CASA.

There are only three other centres in the country offering the training; at TAFE NSW, Aviation Australia and Federation Training in Gippsland, Victoria.

A CASA spokesman said the other centres were not affected.

More than 80 per cent of aircraft maintenance engineers in Australia have certificate or diploma level qualifications, while 3 per cent have university degrees.

&..

Training conflicts raise safety fears

VET has become an important avenue for aviation students. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 8, 2017
  

• [size=undefined]JOHN ROSS
  
  Higher Education reporter
  Sydney
  [img=0x0]https://i1.wp.com/pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/87cd1c5a9ea9d7fe70ed0978bfe815ea/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img][/size]
  

Conflicts between two “parallel” aviation training systems have prompted safety concerns and warnings that Australia risks squandering an opportunity to cash in on business opportunities from southeast Asia.

An Adelaide flight school has highlighted “unintended consequences” of a mismatch in aviation training, in which one stream ­focuses on Civil Aviation Safety Authority credentials and the other on vocational education and training qualifications.

The private college, based at Parafield Airport, faces Administrative Appeals Tribunal proceedings related to three students’ failure to complete VET diplomas.

The co-director of the college, Bruce Hartwig Flying School, said a VET focus on pass rates — appropriate for many disciplines but not the high-stakes world of aviation — had left colleges in a bind.

David Johnston cited Education Department requirements for colleges to achieve pass rates of at least 50 per cent in order for their students to qualify for Vocational Student Loans.

“This puts a flight school in an invidious position,” he said. “It can lose its accreditation to offer students VET funding, and potentially be out of business, if it sticks to its safety mandate.

“Or it can try to shove people through who ­potentially shouldn’t be flying, in an effort to maintain its business viability.

“The unintended consequences are horrific. I’m convinced there will be accidents if the policy’s not changed.”

Authorities shrugged off the warning. The Education Department did not comment.on safety concerns, while a Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman said issues relating to the loan scheme were “not under our area of responsibility”.

“If CASA has evidence of the required training standards not being met we will take appropriate action,” he added.

VET has become an important avenue for aviation students since the introduction of the VET FEE-HELP loans scheme in 2012. The HECS-style loans, which allowed students to defer paying their hefty tuition fees until they were earning reasonable wages, opened a new door into an occupation often previously reserved for ­people with sufficient cash.

The scheme was marred by wide-scale rorting, unsustainable growth and subterranean completion rates. Loans have been curtailed under the far more restrictive VSL program, which replaced VET FEE-HELP this year.

Bruce Hartwig Flying School has now lost access to VSL, and could be denied any VET funding, after the Australian Skills Quality Authority moved to cancel its registration over alleged breaches.

The school disputes ASQA’s findings, which mostly relate to activities before Mr Johnston and co-director David Blake bought the college in 2014.

The matter is being reviewed by the AAT.

A report into the first six months of the VSL scheme says no students at the school have passed any of their subjects, even though the college has attracted almost $220,000 in loans covering that period. Two other flight schools recorded similar results.

Mr Johnston said subjects typically took six months, and the students had been in the courses for only about three months of the ­period covered by the report.

He said VET measures often failed to capture the complexity of aviation training.

For example, a student might pull out of a course after earning a commercial pilot’s licence, and build up flying hours before re-­enrolling a couple of years later to obtain an instrument rating. “Statistically, we have to report that as a withdrawal,” Mr Johnston said. “That’s seen as a failure.”

He said the field was replete with “perverse” outcomes, such as students failing VET courses but nevertheless earning their aviation licences.

“Paradoxically, you can pass your course and come out with no licences. You may have a diploma, but you’re unemployable.”

Mr Johnston said problems like this could deny Australia a place in a growing export training market: southeast Asia is unable to skill up an estimated 228,000 ­pilots needed over the next 18 years. While they had traditionally trained in the US, the lower dollar had made Australia more competitive.

“From a safety and quality standpoint, Australia is arguably the best place to train in the world,” he said.

“We’ve got a huge opportunity to earn export income.”

Further update:

TAFE SA put on notice over health and trade courses

• John Ross, Michael Owen
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 28, 2017
  

Reeling from an aviation training bungle, South Australia’s public vocational colleges now risk losing the right to teach a bundle of trade and health courses.

The vocational education and training regulator has outlined its intention to suspend or revoke TAFE SA’s approval to offer 16 qualifications over unspecified breaches.

TAFE SA has been given 20 days to respond to the notice from the Australian Skills Quality Authority. An ASQA spokesman would not provide details of the failings ahead of the deadline.

“(TAFE SA) has been co-operating with ASQA to work through and rectify the noncompliances,” he said. “ASQA will consider any response before making a final decision on whether to impose the sanction.

“With very large providers with an extensive scope of registration — like TAFE SA — it is not unusual to identify areas requiring attention.”

TAFE SA’s executive director of education, Brian Rungie, said the agency would respond “quickly”, and would continue working with ASQA to address the issues it had raised.

He said the organisation took quality and compliance “extremely seriously” and its internal quality systems had already identified and rectified some of the issues. “We have made significant progress to address other elements.

“TAFE SA will provide additional information to ASQA on the corrective action taken both before and post the audit.”

ASQA’s action follows a routine audit in May. The threatened sanctions involve courses in automotive work, meat processing, commercial cookery, health, hairdressing, visual merchandising, building, plumbing and electrotechnology.

The audit did not cover aviation training. However, ASQA said it was separately investigating problems in aircraft maintenance training raised by the air safety regulator.
Earlier this month the Weekend Australian revealed that a Civil Aviation Safety Authority audit five months ago had determined that the maintenance course, offered at a TAFE SA campus at Adelaide’s Parafield Airport, had failed to meet training and assessment standards.

The discovery led to the suspension of the course and parts of the licences of about 80 aircraft maintenance engineers, pending further investigation.

A CASA spokesman said the agency had last week reinstated its approval for some of the course activities. He expected other activities to be approved progressively, provided that TAFE SA managed “to address the issues successfully”.

He said that while some of the engineers had also had their full licences restored, the remaining 60 or so would “need to demonstrate to CASA or an approved training organisation that the shortcomings in their training and assessment have been addressed”.

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And a quote from the Adelaide Advertiser: TAFE SA warned by national regulator that 16 courses could lose accreditation within four weeks

...The course came under scrutiny five months ago after CASA found worrying issues with the courses assessment procedure during a routine check.

A Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman yesterday said its investigation into that issue was complete, but would not be made public.

“TAFE SA have taken corrective actions and a number, but not all, of their approvals have been reinstated. They need to do further work to get back all approvals but are going in that direction,” he said.

“There is still some aviation engineer training and assessment they cannot deliver and they are working to make the necessary improvements to be able to reinstate these elements of their courses.”

MTF...P2