A vital skills training program for migrants starts in less than a month but questions are being asked about the controversial new provider of the former TAFE Illawarra-run course.
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For-profit MAX Solutions, have been subcontracted by global education provider Navitas, to run the Australian Migrant English Program (AMEP) from July 1 in Wollongong.
But Federal Member for Cunnigham Sharon Bird expressed concerns about whether MAX Solutions were a ‘’compliant RTO’’.
The Labor politician’s concerns arose after a budget estimates hearing in Canberra on Wednesday, where Australian Skills Quality Authority chief executive Mark Patterson confirmed the body had recently audited MAX Solutions, finding it non-compliant.
But, in a statement made to Fairfax Media, MAX Solutions said otherwise. ‘’MAX Solutions has been found to be compliant by [the] ASQA,’’ the statement read.
Controversy has dogged the provider. A government investigation in 2009 detailed an incident which saw MAX Employment, a subsidiary of MAX Solutions, enrol 141 people in a training course, even though its training room only had the capacity to accommodate 15 people.
Ms Bird has written to Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, Karen Andrews asking for urgent answers to a number of questions raised at the estimates hearing.
‘’We are now less than a month away from the date that the new contractors are due to start and the students still have no idea about where their courses will be held, whether they are able to get public transport to these locations and whether there will be child care available nearby,’’ she said.
‘’This situation has not been helped by the Department being unable to answer these questions in Senate Estimates.
‘’The process has been ill considered and is chaotic. I still cannot work out why there are two companies now involved in the delivery of this course and why the Liberals decided to rip the funding from our local TAFE.’’