The training advisory board for electricians is likely to escalate its complaint against the Canberra Institute of Technology after ongoing frustration over the CIT's lack of response.
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The Electrotechnology Energy Advisory Board looks set to make an official complaint to the Australian Skills Quality Authority.
Executive officer Ross Heazlewood said the board had raised issues with the CIT in 2013 about the extent to which its training for apprentice electricians met national standards. It was raised again late last year with the CIT and again on February this year, when the board wrote to then met with the CIT chief executive. Still not satisfied with the response, the board took the issue to the education directorate in June.
It finally heard back from the directorate last week, to be told it was not the right authority to consider the complaint. The board would now consider the next step, going to the national body, Mr Heazlewood said on Wednesday after a hearing of an Assembly inquiry into vocational education.
The board was yet to receive a response from the CIT to its June letter.
"Why wouldn't they have got back to us? I don't understand that," he said.
He told the hearing the lack of response was unacceptable.
"They haven't come back to the board and said 'thank you for the letter', in regard to these issues this is what we're doing. I would have expected that. I think it's unacceptable that the board went to the trouble to write to them and we haven't heard back formally."
The board wanted the CIT to "map" its electrician-training course against the national standards, "something that links industry training standard to what's delivered so we can go to the industry and say, rest assured, everything's fine."
In his latest communication with the CIT it appeared they understood what had been requested and were working on it, Mr Heazlewood said.
The board has also raised concerns about the lack of industry experience among management of the electrical school.
A former trainer and assessor on the course, Ian Dunstan, has also raised concerns about the course and training of electrical apprentices in Canberra.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said the Assembly's inquiry is into the CIT; it is into vocational education as a whole in Canberra.
