The Education and Workforce committee has completed its work on their Inquiry into student accommodation

The Education and Workforce Committee has finished working on the inquiry into student accommodation and has reported back to the House. This work was initiated in June 2020 by the committee in the last Parliament. It was then picked up and completed by the current committee.

We received evidence from a variety of sources, including students, student associations, owners and operators of student accommodation, and tertiary education providers. After considering the 148 written submissions, 30 oral submissions and advice received on this inquiry committee members all agreed that there is room for improvement and made six recommendations to the Government.

The recommendations focused on:

· improving the transparency of governance structures

· increasing students voice in providers’ decision making

· raising the standard of internal disputes processes

· strengthening the connection between all the different dispute resolution and complaints processes

· combining the dispute resolution scheme for domestic tertiary students (after it is enacted) with the existing scheme for international students

· raising the standard of training provided to accommodation staff

· recommending that the Government adopt certain parts of the proposed new pastoral care code.

The details of the recommendations are in the committee’s report. The Government is required to respond to the recommendations by early August 2021. This response will also be available on the Parliament website.

The committee worked collegially on this inquiry and members look forward to the seeing how the Government responds to the issues and recommendations raised in the report.

The committee would like to thank everyone who made a submission. The evidence provided contributed to the committee’s work and the recommendations it has made.

For more details about the Inquiry

· Read the committees report

· Read the evidence and advice received

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