AltEd: Australian Non-Accredited Education Industry Group

Six non-government training companies have formed AltEd, an Australian Non-Accredited Education Industry Group, aiming to be leading providers of quality digital skills education. Australia has a system where both government TAFEs, private not-for-profit and for profit Vocational Educaiton and Training (VET) organizations are accredited under a unified national system. However, AltEd's focus is on training outside this government regulated system.

There have been recent instances of misuse of the regulated system by accredited for-profit providers and questions over the quality of some government providers. The subsequent tightening of regulation has brought complaints from providers that this makes it difficult to provide education.

Rather than seeking a change in the regulations, AltEd is arguing that not being accredited provides more flexibility, and so better education. This is a bold move as non-accredited courses will not be eligible for subsidized government student loans or inclusion in government subsidized international education marketing.

AltEd's founding members are Masterly,  Plato Project, General Assembly, QLC, Zambesi, and School of Design Thinking. Student loans are available for General Assembly and Plato Project, trough the company Study Loans. 

It should be noted there is no requirement for training institutions to be government accredited. However, it is not clear to me how not being accredited will, of itself, improve the quality of vocational courses. Admittedly, becoming accredited involves complex and time consuming processes. However, if an educational institution already has a systematic process for designing learning and assessment, with quality control and evaluation, then the additional regulatory burden should not be too high.