Liz Turner, Melbourne
RMIT University had agreed to compensate a student who paid for, but did not receive, 80 contact hours for a TAFE furniture design course. International students pay $13.99 per contact hour for this course.
Prapass Chairat from Thailand first notified the RMIT Student Union in July 2005 after he noted a discrepancy between the contact hours on his record and the actual contact hours in his timetable. After a year in dispute, and having failed to secure a satisfactory outcome from the university complaints process, the compensation was negotiated through the RMIT Ombuds office.
Over-charging for "phantom" contact hours has been going on for years and does not affect just RMIT students. All TAFEs receive government funding according to the number of student contact hours and TAFEs commonly deliver less contact hours than they are paid for.
The Victorian Labor government's Office of Training and Tertiary Education believes that the number of student contact hours is a matter for the education provider to decide. In other words, the "free market" will sort it out as students "choose" their "preferred" education institution.
This privileges institutions that, under pressure from funding cuts, are charging students more. Meanwhile, the quality of education declines.
International students studying interpreting and translating at RMIT's School of Design and Social Context received only 220 contact hours in first semester; the course should have delivered 300 hours. The entire class signed a complaint letter.
International students are affected more than local students because the former must pay upfront fees. Chairat, for instance, paid approximately $6000 per semester. A group of students studying for a diploma of interpreting paid $6700 for one semester. Some international students in RMIT's School of Business and School of Design and Social Context are being over-charged up to $1000 for undelivered contact hours.
The federal Department of Science, Education and Training's definition of student contact hours is "the total nominal hours (supervised) for the modules undertaken". However, RMIT uses the ambiguous phrase, "unsupervised contact hours" to describe the "learning experience" students are paying for.
An angry Chairat said that students are "paying RMIT for the time that we sit on the toilet and brainstorm homework questions". While Chairat received compensation, hundreds of other international students have not. The RMIT Student Union wants international students to compare their fee invoices with their timetables and calculate the discrepancy. Further, the student union is seeking legal advice on a class action. For more information, email <tafestudentrights@rmit.edu.au> or phone (03) 9925 4769.
[Liz Turner is the TAFE student rights officer with the RMIT Student Union.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 19, 2006.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.