Welfare work training row

THE professional body for welfare and community workers is facing legal action from a group of private training colleges angry at plans to increase English language requirements for registered welfare workers.

The Australian Institute of Welfare and Community Workers says it is cracking down on colleges producing graduates with insufficient English skills. It is worried the colleges are enrolling too many international students who are chasing permanent residency.

"We have warned them for a long time that there are too many students enrolled in these courses," AIWCW secretary Ian Murray told The Australian.

He said he was concerned the colleges were producing graduates "with very poor English and they won't get jobs".

The colleges claim the institute is being discriminatory and protectionist.

Phil Honeywood, the marketing manager for Cambridge International College in Melbourne, which has about 1200 students studying community welfare, said: "They are engaging in discriminatory behaviour to protect their jobs for Australians only."

Mr Honeywood said there was a growing community need for welfare workers from different cultural backgrounds to serve the migrant and refugee communities.

Registration from the AIWCW is important to international students because it is needed if they are to apply for residency under the skilled migration program. The changes, which are proposed to come in from September 30, will hit about 5000 international students, many of them Indian, who are already enrolled in courses.

The Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria is organising a petition to protest against the changes.

The federation's president, Vasan Srinivasan, said he had written to Education Minister Julia Gillard to try to get the AIWCW to change its stance, but was not ruling out legal action.

The AIWCW this month endorsed recommendations from a report it commissioned that welfare workers needed to be rated with a minimum level of English, equivalent of "good", under the International English Language Testing System, up from "competent".

Both the colleges and Mr Srinivasan say that is unnecessarily high. But Mr Murray said it was justified in a profession such as welfare work and put it in line with nursing.

Separately, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Agency has hired forensic accountants from Deloittes to assist in a rapid audit of 17 training colleges it has deemed as high-risk. The audit was announced in May in response to concerns that some colleges were exploiting students and breaching regulations.
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17/07/2009