Govt puts shonky colleges on notice

Tough new rules to protect students from shonky or misleading operators in the private training college sector are in place.

Emergency laws imposing tighter regulations on providers in the VET FEE-HELP scheme cleared parliament in early December, following a torrent of complaints and concerns about dodgy practices in the industry.

From Friday training providers and their agents will be prevented from approaching people and using high-pressure sales tactics to get people to sign up for a VET FEE-HELP loan.

"Training providers and their agents will be prevented from cold-calling people in their homes or approaching people in shopping centres or outside Centrelink and using VET FEE-HELP as the hook to get people to sign up for a training course they do not want or need," Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, Luke Hartsuyker said.

It's also now easier for students to have their VET FEE-HELP debt cancelled if the training provider has misled them.

"We have also introduced stronger rules to pause payments for new enrolments to providers and move to payment in arrears where there are concerns about the provider's performance," Mr Hartsuyker said.

The measures will tide the ailing scheme over until 2017, when a new model for the provision of the VET-FEE HELP scheme will be introduced.