Australia’s Largest Vocational Training Cleanup Cancels 30,000 Qualifications

The crackdown has cancelled thousands of faulty certificates and forced multiple training providers to shut their doors.

Australia’s new integrity laws have triggered the nation’s largest VET crackdown. Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Australia’s vocational education regulator has wiped out tens of thousands of qualifications and shut multiple training colleges in one of the sector’s toughest clean-ups.

Around 30,000 students have already lost their certificates as the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) cracks down on fraudulent and low-quality providers.

The disqualified qualifications span courses that feed directly into frontline workforces: childcare, aged care, disability support, community services, first aid, construction, and trades.

Many of the affected students had paid thousands, in some cases up to $20,000, believing they were completing legitimate training required for national accreditation.

Since the enforcement wave began in late 2024, ASQA has deregistered 11 registered training organisations (RTOs) and voided all associated diplomas, certificates, and statements of attainment.

Latest to face cancellation is Sydney-based Kingsway Vocational Training, where 15 courses, including courses dealing with marketing and leadership, were cancelled after inspection.

Earlier this year, the largest collapse occurred at Luvium, trading as Australia Education & Career College, which lost more than 7,300 certificates. IIET lost 6,800 qualifications, SPES Education 4,200, Arizona College 3,500, and Gill’s College 3,300.

ASQA then urgently alerted more than 18,750 former students that their qualifications may be cancelled due to safety or compliance concerns.

Students from four deregistered providers were invited to prove they had received proper training, but only about 20 percent responded. ASQA said each case was individually assessed before confirming cancellations.

ASQA’s Detailed Report to Parliament

In September, ASQA tabled a comprehensive report (pdf) to Parliament outlining the scale of the problem and the progress of the crackdown.

By that time, the regulator had already cancelled more than 25,500 qualifications and statements of attainment issued without proper training, assessment, or compliance.

It had also issued 129 infringement notices totalling $2.6 million, under strengthened enforcement powers.

The report revealed a sharp rise in rejected applications—a direct result of the tougher scrutiny under the 2024 legislation.

ASQA rejected 85 new registered training organisations’ applications in 2024–25, compared with 42 in 2022–23 and 38 in 2023–24.

According to the regulator, this shift indicates that “integrity concerns are increasingly being identified at the point of entry,” preventing non-genuine providers from ever entering the system.

Despite the crackdown, the VET sector continued to attract new entrants. Of the 245 applications approved in 2024–25:

• 105 providers were authorised to train domestic students
• 58 providers were approved to teach both domestic and international students
• 8 were approved to deliver English-language training
• 15 existing registered training organisations gained new authorisations to deliver courses to international students

The federal government says the crackdown is aimed at protecting high-quality providers while removing operators who undermine trust in qualifications used in critical workforces.

A $37.8 million investment has supported the establishment of ASQA’s Integrity Unit, the upgrade of regulatory data systems, and the expansion of a national tip-off line for reporting misconduct.

New Laws Trigger the Crackdown

The enforcement surge followed the passage of new federal laws in early 2024 aimed at cleaning up the vocational education sector.

The Strengthening Quality and Integrity in Vocational Education and Training No. 1 Bill 2024 gave ASQA its biggest expansion of powers in a decade.

The reforms came after years of warnings—from the Nixon Review on visa exploitation, the 2018 Braithwaite Review of VET regulation, and a 2023 parliamentary inquiry—all of which pointed to widespread rorting, weak oversight, and “non-genuine” training providers entering the market.

Under the bill, Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor said the government was targeting operators who had treated students as “easy money.”

“What we are doing is simple. We are making it tougher for the bottom-feeders, the fraudsters, and the cheats to take advantage of students for a quick buck. We are restoring integrity to the sector,” the Minister said.