Senate Inquiry: ESOS Amendments Bill 2010
On 24 June 2010 the Senate referred the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2010 for inquiry and report.
The Bill amends the ESOS Act 2000 in relation to:
- the registration process for approved providers;
- financial penalties;
- the publication of certain information.
The Bill amends the Ombudsman Act 1976 to enable the Ombudsman to:
- provide an independent complaints body for overseas students of private registered providers;
- provide advice and training to private registered providers to facilitate best practice complaint handling; and
- review and investigate complaint handling and report on systemic issues
The Bill amends the Privacy Act 1988 to:
- enable the Australian Information Commissioner to transfer certain complaints to the Overseas Students Ombudsman.
In particular, the Bill includes amendments to extend the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth Ombudsman to include private providers, as follows:
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Standard 8 of the National Code requires registered providers to have arrangements in place for a person or body independent of and external to the registered provider to hear complaints or appeals arising from the registered provider’s internal complaints and appeals process or refer students to an existing body where that body is appropriate for the complaint or appeal. Currently many providers are under the jurisdiction of the relevant state/territory Ombudsman. This enables the students of these providers to direct their complaints to the particular Ombudsman for review or investigation.
However, students of private providers, while they must be provided
access to an external complaints body, do not have access to a
statutorily independent external body, such as an ombudsman. Providing
access to such a body means that student complaints are heard and
investigated in a consistent and quality‐assured manner. |
The Committee is seeking written submissions from interested individuals and organisations preferably in electronic form submitted online or sent by email to eewr.sen@aph.gov.au as an attached Adobe PDF or MS Word format document. The email must include full postal address and contact details.
Submissions should be received by 30 July 2010. The reporting date is 24 August 2010.
For further information, contact:
Committee Secretary
Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia
| Phone: | +61 2 6277 3521 |
| Fax: | +61 2 6277 5706 |
| Email: | eewr.sen@aph.gov.au |