Price check
“Make sure you find out about exams
and how you get your certification and
if you have to pay for exams,” Walter
Buratto tells us. He bailed out of an
online information
technology course
because it “just gave
you access to all
certifications but
no advice about
where to start if
you were new to
IT. Email support
wouldn’t answer your
questions directly
and every time it was
a different person”.
Andrea Eves agrees. “Sometimes I
wonder why we have to pay so much
when the available support is limited.”
Anyone can set up an online learning or
training program, so how do you know if you’ll end up with a real accreditation or
relinquish your money to an opportunist
who may be running the business from
their kitchen table or who isn’t qualified? See our tips for choosing an online education course.
In the first five months of 2012, NSW Fair Trading received an average of 10
complaints a month in relation to online
courses, with lack of technical support
among the top complaints. Consumers
also had to chase after refunds because
the business closed down, or they were
promised study material that never
arrived. They also complained about
misrepresented course content or
accreditation value, as well as about costs
being added after the course had started.
NSW Fair Trading is less than
sanguine about some segments of
the industry. “Each year we receive
complaints from students about training
and educational courses regarding fees
and refunds, misleading information and
course quality,” a spokesperson told us.
“Consumers are advised to be wary
when selecting vocational education
and training courses.”
Consumer Affairs Victoria says online
training and education businesses should
be on notice that the new AustralianConsumer Law regime has tightened
the reins and makes it a crime to “make
statements that are misleading or
deceptive or would be likely to mislead
or deceive” or “rely on small print and
disclaimers”.
Is it legit?
One easy way to avoid being duped
is to make sure the course is listed
on a recently
launched national register of training organisations and
accredited courses. A listing
ensures the course can deliver
nationally recognised
qualifications, but is no
guarantee that it will be well
run or the digital platform
well designed. And if
you’re forced to seek
assistance, the kind
of customer service
frustration commonly
associated with telcos may be
in store.
If you find yourself spending
more time figuring out how to
make the online platform
work than learning the
material, and if support is
hard to come by – or the
quality of the course
doesn’t live up to its
advertising – the
Australian Skills Quality Authority
(ASQA) will take
your complaint, as
long as the course is
run by a registered
training organisation
(RTO). This federal
agency acts as a watchdog
to ensure RTOs deliver
vocational education
and training that
meets nationally
approved standards.
Another federal initiative,
the Australian Qualifications Framework, provides a national policy for ensuring qualifications are up to scratch. ASQA prepared an up-to-date
complaint report for CHOICE, which
showed that assessment methods and
processes form the highest complaint
category, followed by marketing tactics.
Not far behind these are training delivery
and the quality of the trainers.
ASQA corporate communications
manager Diana Martinez says the
online environment has built-in
shortcomings when it comes to
“assessing competencies” and that the
authority has concerns about “how
training providers ensure the validity
and authenticity of assessment, and how
the online training materials meet the
requirements of the national industry
competency standards”. Martinez says
ASQA is in the process of updating a
checklist on its website to help consumers avoid dodgy operators.