Selby McDonald was just days away from finishing her Mental Health Certificate IV qualification with Chisholm TAFE online.
She was on a work placement with a prominent not-for-profit mental health provider who she was thrilled to be working with.
They even offered her an ongoing job as a mental health support worker.
All she needed was her final qualification, which was set to come through in one week's time.
But when Selby logged on one day, her 12 months of study were instantly up-ended.
Chisholm online said the assessments she had completed at the start of this year had to be redone and her work placement might not be valid.
"I've lost job opportunities and I'm stuck doing the job I'm doing currently [as a receptionist] because I can't get this certificate," she said.
"I feel helpless and like there's not much hope."
She is still unclear about how much further study she will need to do to get the one-year certificate.
She was meant to be finished in April.
On Wednesday, the ABC revealed issues with three of Chisholm TAFE's online mental health courses, affecting some 200 students.
A self-audit conducted by Chisholm before January found that the coursework and assessments were not compliant with industry standards.
Despite this, students said they were kept in the dark about the situation until March.
Selby is wondering how it could have got to this point and how issues were not picked up earlier.
"I can't believe [the sector] isn't adequately regulated," she said.
In a statement, the Department of Education and Training said it will now attend Chisholm TAFE on a weekly basis to monitor the delivery of the Certificate IV in Mental Health to ensure it met industry standards.
"We're incredibly disappointed this course has clearly fallen below the high standards of our Free TAFE programs," a Department of Education and Training spokesperson said.
"We'll work to make sure no other Chisholm student has this experience, and consider an audit of other online mental health courses to ensure they are all providing the quality training Victorian students deserve."
Lawyer believes 'wild west' online courses are poorly regulated
No compliance issues have been found with Chisholm TAFE's on-campus courses, with the three courses affected being online offerings.
Andrew Grech, a partner with Gordon Legal, said the issues were not new, and government regulation of the online sector — led by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) — had a lot to do with it.
"I think the problem with some of these courses is it's a little bit like the wild west," he said.
"When you've got educators who are unregulated, or largely unregulated because ASQA takes no active interest in what really goes on in these courses, then it leads to behaviours and situations like this where students are clearly left in the lurch when they shouldn't be."
Mr Grech is representing more than 1,000 students who studied aviation at the Box Hill Institute and say they were not given the basic skills needed to work in the industry.
One of them was almost killed in a crash after he flew a plane he allegedly had little training in piloting.
Mr Grech said the legislation framework meant ASQA only investigated providers when it already knew things were going wrong.
"There's nothing in the legislation that requires them to conduct audits at any particular interval. And that is, I think, part of the problem."
"When ASQA does intervene, it's generally speaking, a tick box exercise," Grech said.
"It doesn't get down to the substance of what's really going on and the qualitative things that need to be assessed, when you're determining whether a course provider's meeting all of the things that it should meet in order to be able to take public money to provide those courses."
Regulator denies finding compliance issues in audit
ASQA told the ABC it audited Chisholm TAFE in December 2021 and made no findings of non-compliance.
It also said it required providers to audit themselves to ensure their training, assessment strategies and practices were compliant.
"When conducting a performance assessment ASQA will review some but not all standards, and take a sample of evidence across the training products offered," a statement said.
It is not clear what triggered the ASQA audit, as none of the students the ABC has spoken with had issues with Chisholm's online mental health offerings before term 1 of this year.
Chisholm said its own independent review uncovered the issues with the three courses, and not ASQA.
"In line with our quality assurance processes, course materials and assessments at Chisholm are regularly reviewed to ensure they align with current industry standards," a Chisholm spokesperson said.
Chisholm has not confirmed when it conducted its own review, but the ABC has evidence the TAFE knew there were compliance issues at the start of the year.
Justin Mullaly, from the Australian Education Union, said while regulation of the sector needed to be questioned, the core issue was funding.
"Corners are cut. We don't have our TAFEs funded to deliver the cost of training," Mr Mullally said.
Selby McDonald is not quite sure what the issue is.
But she wants it fixed, not just for herself and her fellow students, but for Victorians in need of mental health support.
"All of us in the course, we just want to be out their helping people [with mental health issues] and it just seems so unfair on them that they're not having adequate support because students can't get qualified to help them."
