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New national VET regulator will help boost standards and quality of training. 08 December, 2009 | Media Release Unions have welcomed the creation of a single national regulator of Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector as an important step towards higher standards in the sector. The Council of Australian Governments has agreed to set up a new regulatory body that will begin operation in 2011.


CHINA has become Australia's biggest source of migrants, for the first time eclipsing New Zealand and Britain. The latest migration figures show a record 6350 new settlers arrived from mainland China in the four months to October, compared with the 5800 from Britain and the 4740 from New Zealand.

TWO more private colleges in Melbourne have been forced to close after a regulator found they had failed to meet the most basic education standards. The Australian Institute of Career Education and the Australian International College of Commerce were closed yesterday because they had inadequate learning materials, deficient kitchen facilities for training hospitality students, and they failed to keep proper student records.


Employment ads jump 5.2pc ina month as economy picks up. THE number of jobs advertised in newspapers and on websites rose 5.2 per cent in November, as the economic recovery gathered pace. The ANZ job advertisement survey released yesterday showed that overall job ads jumped to an average 140,658 a week in November, following a 1.7 per cent dip in October.


Economists hail 'extraordinary' job surge. Australia's unemployment rate has fallen to 5.7 per cent, after the creation of 31,200 jobs in November. Even better news was that full-time jobs made up most of the increase, with the Bureau of Statistics survey showing 30,800 full-time positions created, seasonally adjusted.

BRUCE Baird's interim report of the review of the Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Act 2000 gives only broad indications of the review's thinking. On many points the interim report just identifies an issue without saying what action is contemplated. But there seems to be medicine for almost everyone involved in Australian international tertiary education.

UNIVERSITY teaching is in worrying shape in Australia but regulation is not the answer, according to an international expert on the student experience. "I would be quite anxious about further regulation of teaching, I don't think that's the way to improve its quality," said Paul Ramsden, outgoing chief of Britain's Higher Education Academy.