Open Training and Education Network

Long time student but it gets worse – I have studied on and off with TAFE ( mainly correspondence and online) since 1995 and yet every time I go to do a new course it is worse than the time before. Teachers don’t care and trying to deal with Admin is a nightmare

Take your learning journey elsewhere if you want to succeed – If I could give a rating lower than 1, I would. Here are my experiences. Experience #1 At the beginning of this year I've enrolled in a Statement of Attainment in Cybersecurity under guidance from TAFE Digital as I wanted to do a Diploma in IT (Cyber) of which I was advised that completing the statement of attainment will grant me credits toward… Read more

a couple of subjects. Fast forward to the present, I have enrolled in the diploma course and emailed the teachers for confirmation on which subjects I should list down on my application for credits. I did not receive a reply until a month later with TAFE advising that I am unable to receive credits as the subjects are different. This is despite advise received from TAFE.

Experience #2 I have commenced work on a unit in the diploma course while waiting for a response from TAFE to the email I have sent above and spent approximately a month on the unit that did not have any requisites. I have started working on the assessments when the following day, I've found that the unit has been locked and that it can only be unlocked by completing the first unit in the course. This happened without any notification from TAFE of the course changes.

Experience #3 While I was completing my Statement of Attainment, the course content was out of date. Links to resources were broken and the provided resources (when I was able to access them) for the assignments did not work. I had emailed the teachers about this and did not receive any reply until 3 weeks later when my course was about to end. As I was running out of time, I had to improvise to get the assignment resources working.

Experience #4 I have submitted my application for subject credits and RPL as I hold degree in IT from an Australian university and have been working in the industry for 30 years. I have received a reply from TAFE advising that the subjects I am seeking credits for must be an exact match between my transcript and the course units even though the subject names are the same and that university provided unit is actually more advanced. I have also received another reply advising that in order to get approved for RPL, I need to create a "map" (essentially an essay) for each topic in the unit I am applying and how it relates to my skills and experience. This makes it very difficult to obtain recognition for prior learnings even if you are highly skilled.

Overall, my learning journey with TAFE Digital was not a pleasant one. Study resources are out of date or not working, teachers are unresponsive and are often unavailable. If you want to succeed in your studies and for your studies to have an impact, go elsewhere or at the very least, go on-campus.

Course resources are very poor , there is no learning material, assessment's descriptions and questions are not clear – The course lacks any learning material, you will have to do your own research which is not a big issue as I did at Uni too, the problem is in the assessments , they are simple ,but the way its mark by the teachers seems arbitrary . They are not written clearly and the teacher continues to ask you to resubmit an assessment if she/he didn't think… Read more

you answer the question right. I found it extremely frustrating as I know I was giving a correct answer , considering the level of teaching and resources provided ( none). Teacher continuously trying to over complicate the assessments questions and answers , often asking for something different that the actual question . So you spend weeks just with one assignment resubmitting and getting a silly feedback again again . I found my uni degree 100% better and easier to pass , while getting actual knowledge and learning. I will recommend finding another college . AVOID TAFE.

Ok wrong company – Wrong business and product review doesn't have an option to delete that I can find. I thought I was reviewing TAFE Ultimo in Sydney. Cant seem to delete this review.

Entry Education Courses – I found the staff very professional and had rapid responses to my queries. The Course content was user friendly and a free flowing format. I would highly recommend Entry Education.

Helpful so long as you set realistic expectations – I think where a lot of peoples negative experiences come from is what they thought the experience would be like, this is not going to be a digital version of a face to face learning experience. Online learning very much relies on the student understanding how to research topics beyond the source material provided, in some instances the source… Read more

material is good but it mostly lacks enough to properly inform and is more of a point in the right direction for the student to begin internet research.

I didn't need a lot of help but when i submitted questions to teachers i received a response usually within 24h and most of my assessments were marked within a week of submission. Overall i would definitely say i learned some important topics and methods from doing this course, now do i think its value for money? If you're paying full price id have to say no, there really isn't enough to justify the full cost but if you receive a subsidy and are happy to complete your studies with very minimal assistance then id absolutely recommend Tafe NSW Digital / OTEN. I intend on completing further study through them once i figure out what course to do next.

DO NOT I MEAN DO NOT SIGN UP FOR NOW CALLED TAFE DIGITAL – I am quite dismayed to see a government training organisation harassing people with NSW Debt recovery THREE YEARS DOWN THE TRACK!!!!! for a Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care course, that skills IQ and industry including Tafe on the board, decided would be a superseded training course in the February. So first consultations with Skills… Read more

IQ were held in February 2019, second May 2019 and third around August/sept, except even in May Tafe decided to keep enrolling students in an ALREADY impending superseded training package and didn't bother to tell me as a prospective student of that decision upon intial enquiry and enrollment into the course in MAY, funny I would have NEVER enrolled in a course ALREADY decided on from Skills IQ and industry including TAFe, as a superseded course. So when I found out through people talking about it in the industry, Tafe acted dishonestly vague and then went out of their way to delay my request for immediate withdrawal as early as july/august 2019, so the education support officer refered to the teacher, the teacher couldnt be bothered about the withdrawal said nothing about needing to fill out a withdrawal form over the phone, kept asking to be withdrawn MULTIPLE times and in an official complaint and still not withdrawn, waiting, waiting to hear about official complaint, NOTHING so customer service had to resubmit the official complaint ONCE AGAIN on my behalf and finally in NOVEMBER 2019 the head teacher sends me a nice email saying, well tough luck we still consider this course current even though other private training organisation who out of curiosity I made enquires AND GUESS WHAT THEY WERE HONEST and were not enrolling students in that course way back in May, and it was clear from Skills IQ it was decided it was "superseded", FINALLY here's an attachment for a withdrawal form, except there was NO attachment from the head teacher in the email, so try to contact teacher through the portal in December to ONCE again request withdrawal and NOTHING!! so gave up! Except Tafe decides three years down the track to pursue me through NSW debt recovery for the FULL price of a FULL unit of study when I only completed the first three intial quizzes well because as the customer service lady from TAFE chuckled "oh don't log on your portal even if your trying to contact a bloody teacher because you will be charged up to that point EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT ACTIVELY STUDYING, OH YES LOTS OF STUDENTS GET CAUGHT OUT WITH THIS, well because they don't know!!!! Then I put in another complaint recently on Tafes request because of the debt recovery three years down the track and get told TOUGH LUCK and we tried to ring you that ASIC delayed the finalisation of the training package except I had requested to NOT be rung because I cant take phone calls when I am working on the floor AND isn't it funny that TAFE were short staffed because of bush fires and COVID but hey they kept trying to ring me "wink, wink". I DONT CARE THAT ASIC DELAYED FINALISATION because of bush fires & covid, IT WAS STILL A SUPERSEDED TRAINING PACKAGE, MEANING I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO USE MANY OF THE UNITS AS CREDITS FOR FURTHER STUDY AND YOU AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED HAD A LEGAL OBLIGATION TO TELL PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS OF THE "ALREADY IMPENDING SUPERSEDED STATUS OF A COURSE" THAT YOU KEPT ENROLLING STUDENTS IN!!!!!! But don't worry you won't as a student have a leg to stand on because the Ombudsman that should be protecting students from this rorting isnt interested in something that happened years ago, but Tafe is very interested in harassing and stressing people out with DEBT RECOVERY even if it was THREE years ago. So my advice to students DO NOT USE TAFE, they reserve the right to keep enrolling students in a course that they KNOW FULL WELL HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED ON BY SKILLS IQ AND INDUSTRY as an impending superseded training package which they will be dishonest about when you call this out and they reserve the right to change the course AT ANY TIME meaning unless those units are still considered "equivalent" after becoming a superseded training package you wont be able to use them as prior learning or to gain credits if you want to pursue further education!!!! BUT WHO THE HELL CARES that's Tafes motto!!! My advice to prospective students ESPECIALLY younger students, check that the course you are enrolling in has not ALREADY been designated as a "superseded training package" with Skills IQ, because Tafe will not be honest about it. If you want to sign up for a Diploma in Early Childhood Education and Care here in Wollongong I highly recommend ECTARC not TAFE. ECTARC were completely honest about the impending superseded nature of the course and were not continuing to enrol students in a course that they knew would affect their ability to use completed study for credits for further education, I wish I had gone with them instead of TAFE who were dishonest about the courses status and purposely went out of their way to delay withdrawal because they just wanted to continue to make money. Disappointed to see what I thought was meant to be a reputable government training organisation act more dodgey than the private training organisations. I will be warning people about Tafe's actions and I would not recommend them to ANYONE!!! Tafe doesn't care if they are continuing to enroll students on the tail end of an already designated superseded training package with Skills IQ, as long as they keep making money at the expense of your further education and employment!

The worst experience – Enrolled in a course then before I commenced both my parents died overseas. OTEN requested copies of death certificates etc - all provided but then totally refused to cancel any of my charges. Absolutely disgusting. Now I carry the debt. Awful

Corrupt government organisation – Wanted to get a cert iv signed up for originally the wrong course. This is in a 4 month time span by the way. Later, called them up and said if I could transfer to the course I actually wanted to do, Didn't give a dam about my request and said just submit a deferral is the best they can do, so I successfully submittes the deferal, 4 weeks later… Read more

the tafe teacher I was supposed to have called me up and said why I wasn't attending class, which I said I withdrew from, so I called later that day to customer service who said they lost my original defferal and to send it again. I ended up saying ,actually just give me my money back I dont want to do the course with you anymore, they told me that they will send a refund form which They sent, I ended up immidiatly completed it then sent it. A week later got a call from head of finance saying Id see the funds back in my account within 7-10 days. 3 weeks later, still no refund, may have well just have told me to f””k off from the get go, government stooges. Absolutely, completely and utterly do not recommend these unorganised, corrupt, time wasting, lazy, sad excuse for an education department. What a horrible experience. Way to make the customers genuinely hate you.

Only after for your money! And that’s all about it! – All after is money! I attended a course to gain some skills, in some reasons I need to deferred my studies. I filled up and submitted a form and no one process it. All they process is demanding a payment. When I rang no one attended the call and leave a weeks before they contacted me via email that saying “no action required because it been sent… Read more

error” now the state debt is chasing me for my payment. How disgraceful it is? They don’t even deserve a 1/2 star fir me.

They only after your Money!!! – If you are not interested to continue your study at OTEN DO NOT FORGET TO WITHDRAW your course!! they will put you on State of debt to collect the unpaid fee! You study on your own. I don't see my teacher on Zoom even once. they will call you for like 2 minutes and for them it was a big deal. you have to study on your own without assistance from the teacher! And the administration are full of crap!

Very poor service when it comes to deferring – I have put in a deferral form for 6 months off my tafe course. I am currently very unhappy with how this is NOT being processed. It has been nearly two weeks now. I have emailed numerous times about it and even called. Wow, is anyone in? No? So, are you just going to ignore this whole thing now and pretend I didn't put a deferral form in so that you can just charge me a mountain of fees at the end of the day? What a joke this is...

Slow to enrol and lack of communication – I signed up to my course 3 weeks ago and have been patiently waiting for someone to get back to me about my enrollment. I had to chase up TAFE NSW and the teaching team multiple times in regards to my enrollment. After chasing up 3-4 times I finally found out I had an outstanding balance on my account from a course I withdrew from 7 years ago!! I… Read more

sent through the withdrawal form again and I have not heard anything back since. The customer support team have been okay to deal with, the teachers have been nice and responsive but only after I chased them. The communication is not the best and they are slow to process things. Wish I had read the reviews beforehand. Considering taking my money elsewhere...

The worst education available – The online courses were not engaging at all The staff were not helpful and lied about process The fees are huge and there is no consideration or empathy for even family death.

Don’t meet required for course with no requirements – Don’t even bother. I have just been told that I am not accepted into a course because I don’t meet the requirements- when the course clearly states there are no entry requirements. Also did not get back to requests for career councelling that they say they offer.

Terrible, Avoid!!!! – Signed up for a Cert IV. Did 2 months and withdrew. Terrible and unhelpful Workbooks. No actual teaching just summaries about topic then a link to Linkin learning. The assignments are barley coherent. Teachers will take 2-3 weeks to mark an assignment even though assignment 2 follows straight from assignment 1 and so on. Call for help and get… Read more

ahold of a teacher who barely speaks english and plain rude and thats a big IF you can get ahold of one. Avoid OTEN like the pox. Find another provider.

Don’t enroll at Tafe OTEN – There are numerous reasons for this, After doing and failing multiple courses with this provider, it is apparent that the teachers do not care at all about the students and marking assignments, in the cert Iv TAE 20116 it took 3 months to mark assignments, not just one but all of them. I also had experienced problems with customer service from… Read more

the organisation from getting my name and gender changed, enrolling in my new name for it to display old name, numerous emails and phone calls to get name and gender changed, numerous forms filled out and sent for nothing but asked to fill one out again.

It’s hard being a trans person as is let alone dealing with Tafe’s crap and not understanding that hey we exist

The learning materials for the courses I’ve been enrolled in are severely outdated even business admin wanted an out t of date MYOB

Awful experience – I’ve been with Tafe digital for nearly a year, it’s been a month since I’ve submitted an assignment, I’ve to tell my teachers I find it difficult and they ask what questions am I finding hard, I replied back with I find the whole course really difficult. they sent me a withdrawal form

Rude course advisor – I contacted them for more information about a course, the course advisor is so rude, refuse to tell me basic information such as course's fees. I would not want to study with an organisation in which the staffs are so rude and arrogant.

STUDENTS BEWARE – Digital Construction Academy have not satisfied my online learning at all. After many years of debating whether to do this course online I choose to move forward and do it. I have been doing these tutorials for less than 2 weeks only to encounter multiple IT issues at my end and inhibiting my learning. DCA tutor tries to offer some advice but as… Read more

they put it so nicely “ I do not wish to use valuable time and energy bandying back and forth these frustrations”. In short fix it yourself, if your not that IT focused it does not help. But DCA take your money first then place a care factor of zero when issues arise. I know have no choice but to withdraw because I’m limited with what I see at my end which does not reflect what the videos portray. So my pitch is dit h DCA, find another alternative or just go to TAFE or UNI instead and forget online option with this organisation.

Utter rubbish!! fraudulent!!!!! – Outdated format, questions donot even relate to childcare. Not worth the greif. Promise the world, give you an atlas. Not worth a star!!!! Donot sign up with them.... STAY AWAY

An utterly corrupt organisation and a disgrace to Australian education – Studying Marketing and Communication Cert IV, so far all the learning materials have been outsourced from other organisations, there are is almost no information or lectures available despite lectures being advertised, I had to call my assignment marker because he failed me for an almost completely random reason only to find out that my marker… Read more

barely spoke English and could scarcely even read my assignment, upon complaining I was completely ignored and finally after getting the assignment passed rather than the usual situation where my assignments are given absolutely no feedback, the feedback I did receive was barely legible as again, it was written by someone who knew very little English. Overall TAFE as a whole is an incredibly un-professional organisation and stands as a truly profound example of the degradation of the Australian educational system. This is absolutely sad and I strongly recommend against dealing with TAFE unless you absolutely NEED a specific TAFE qualification, if that's the case then I wish you luck. You'll need it.

Graduation photo let down – After graduating with a Diploma, I went for the photo shoot in Hervey Bay. Expecting to have my photo taken in the black academic dress and cap, as the graduates did last year. I was told that this year Tafe staff made the decision not to hire the gowns as students could not afford the hire fee of $40. When questions why students were not given… Read more

the option to make that decision there was no plausible reply. Very upsetting when students worked through limited teaching and inadequate resources due to Covid. Now all we have is a photo in our street wear with a cap, ridiculous. No consideration for students needs and welfare, how can Tafe decide how I want to spend my money and what is important to me ?

Cert 3 Early Ed - Course content needs a refresh – Random videos not linked to any learning outcomes. Broken links. One link takes you to a website decommissioned <5 years ago. Teaching staff were reasonably easy to connect with, however their answers did not help (we are going to do a review over the next few months doesn't help me today). Assessment based on content not yet delivered. Multiple admin errors in enrolling and deferring processes. Show details

Never again – I am writing this in hope of people not making the same mistake I did going into this course. - Many assessments are based on material that is non existent throughout the course. My final assessments have no relevant videos, material or anything to actually help me complete them. - Teachers are rarely available, so you are left on your own for… Read more

the entire course with outdated content. - Teachers that are available do not usually have adequate knowledge on the on the subject matter, so they'll refer you to someone else. - Assessment guidelines are unclear and have spelling/grammar errors. - For the later stages of my course (final assessments), no relevant learning material was available at all. - I remember that I submitted an email to the teacher (question for assessment) and it took an entire week to get a response for a simple question.

So again, dont expect any help or learning materials, because you will NOT learn with this institute. The teachers will not help you.

Make sure that you are overly qualified if you take a course, so that you do not need help or assistance.

If you do take a course to learn, make sure you have a personal teacher available or people that can constantly help you get through it.

I don’t recommend tafe nsw oten – Unfortunately my experience was not a good one. Teachers are hard to get a hold of and feedback is not helpful and very discouraging. An assessor for the Horticulture course was extremely abrupt in his feedback which doesn’t help when you’re trying to learn. The recourses need to be updated and more content included it’s all over the place. The… Read more

assessment systems need upgrading as they don’t even recognise correct answers so you’re wasting so much time on a question you got correct that the systems don’t recognise which they don’t warn you about prior starting the assessments. They didn’t bother to reply to my feedback clearly they don’t care if you pull out waste of time . Don’t bother.

Customer Service is appalling – My experience with OTEN has been absolutely dreadful. One mistake after another on their end requiring never ending phone calls and emails to try to rectify. Teachers are no better taking weeks to reply to questions meaning assignments are delayed. I went with Tafe thinking surely they would be the best but sadly my experience has been a complete nightmare. Show details

Career Pathways, Aboriginal Languages & Employability Skills (Wollongong TAFE) – Did a job interview to teach in Foundation Skills in June 2020 at Wollongong TAFE. The convenor of the Career Pathways, Aboriginal Languages & Employability Skills (who can’t spell ‘employability’ on his LinkedIn site), kept calling me ‘Michael’. The other two interviewers didn’t ask me a question. I’d seen more life in Easter Island statues. No… Read more

explanation on the rejection. I’ve got 15 years of TAFE and higher ed teaching experience and I run a very successful professional writing business, getting people jobs across Australia. They didn’t want to know. The job was stitched up before I arrived. Avoid Wollongong TAFE like Covid-19.

Waste of time and money – Teachers are overloaded so it is challenging to get support and it is not real time so I practically did a self study which is not easy. Course content I found interesting, BUT I completed advanced diploma of IT business analysis online a year ago, got 10 out of 10 for my major project BI design document. The problem is I CANNOT FIND JOB, TAFE no… Read more

longer offers job placement, so 1 year of studies and $4000 (50% off) wasted. I have not had a single employer respond to my CV for Business Analysis, System analysis, Data analysis, Graduate IT business Analysis. Mind you I have 3 years of cross skills experience with IT Business Analysis and PM roles that I worked as a complex IT project lead integrator. I have experience writing business cases, eliciting requirements, creating work processes and support matrix, rich all level stakeholder management experience.

No help – Not happy wanted to find out about a course had trouble enrolling and then a teacher enrolled me with out asking me had a family emergency and emailed saying didn’t want to enrol no one got back family emergency was dealt with and wanted to reenrol and no help

Absolutely useless - do not waste your money! – The only thing difficult about OTEN is that the teachers are unavailable and the course resources are a mix of broken links, missing information and information that's been copied and pasted from old courses into half new ones so none of it matches up. The video "Connect" guide which is supposed to be a teacher "teaching you" is a mumble session… Read more

of things that will only confuse you even more than when you first started. OTEN is not to be recommended to anyone ever. The teachers are never available despite claims to the contrary and the teaching staff you finally get put through to are often rude and upset that you even called in the first place. I get they may be short staffed but if you're paying full price for this then you would be demanding a refund in any circumstances. They will throw in a random assignment towards the very end of your course that has nothing to do with what you're studying for and you wont be able to complete it and no one will care. If I had to give a rating it would be less than zero.

How can you complete a course when there is little to no training material or documents to even give a slight idea of what they require to complete it? It's like them asking for an answer to a question they havent asked