Another trainwreck in the VET sector, with The Age reporting that Agoge Education Australia has been told its status as a Registered Training Organisation will be cancelled on 31 October.
Agoge closed campuses in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Newcastle in June, having been promoted as a "global leader in innovative sports education".
Agoge reportedly was linked to FC 11, a sports training academy promoted as "Australia’s leading sports education provider” before its collapse in February with debts of over $5 million and $4945 in the bank.
Problems at both bodies are symptomatic of regulatory failure across the vocational education sector, belatedly addressed in the recent Braithwaite report noted here.
The Age reports that an investigation by the Australian Quality Skills Authority found Agoge was in breach of government guidelines for the sector and that its "executive officers and/or high managerial agents failed to meet the fit and proper person requirements".
Michael Katsaris, an Agoge Director and one of the owners of FC 11, is reported as stating that consumers received a "blue-ribbon course" with an 80 per cent completion rate, above the average for other registered training organisations. He appears to have denied any breach of fiduciary duty, reportedly stating "We always acted honestly when it came to our students and we did everything we could to give them a positive experience. There are so many crooks in the industry and we were one of the only ones trying to do the right thing.''
The Age appears unimpressed, noting that former students of FC11 contacted Fairfax in May when the training provider when had been put into liquidation, .complaining they had debts of over $25,000 for diplomas that were "not worth the paper they were printed on''. One unhappy customer of Agoge is reported as having been influenced by marketing material of elite training facilities, sports scientists, high-performance coaches and links to some of the nation’s biggest clubs and associations. Reality appears to have been somewhat different: "When I got to training on the first day, there was a bloke with a bag of soccer balls and some cones. They didn't even have a gym,"
Questions about governance are evident in promotion by FC 11 through endorsements from Football Federation Victoria, Penrith Panthers, NSW Cricket, Sydney Thunder and Sydney Sixers. Some of those entities are now owed significant debts by FC 11.
The Age notes that a creditors report refers to investigation of whether FC 11's directors had breached their fiduciary duties:
"Our preliminary view is that the company may have been (insolvent) from around October 2016 and remained insolvent at all times to the date of our appointment on 9 February 2018".
