ACCC sounds warning to IT trainers with judgement against Zanok

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 07 October 2009 02:15

IT People - Training

The ACCC has put IT training firms on notice after rubbing out one firm for five years after taking it to the Federal Court. The firm, Zanok Technologies, was deemed to be guilty of misleading, deceptive and unconscionable conduct toward foreign students and IT graduates who undertook its courses.

In an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission initiated action, the Federal Court found Zanok, Darley Stephen and Vanitha Darley, both Indian nationals residing in Australia, had engaged in misleading and deceptive and unconscionable conduct toward the students and graduates.

The ACCC alleged that Zanok had put job advertisements on various websites including MyCareer, Seek and Gumtree, offering various IT positions, when Zanok was not offering job opportunities but rather "IT training" for which applicants must pay up to $4,700.

The ACCC alleged that despite assurances from Zanok and its agents, there was no guarantee of a job at the end of the training. The ACCC also alleged that the training was unstructured, disorganised and of no value.

The judgement raises questions about the guarantees of jobs at the end of training courses provided by some of Australia's leading IT training firms. However, the larger firms do have jobs placement programs attached to courses, as well as well structured training programs.

Trainers, such as Excom, use successful after course job placements as a selling point for their courses. iTWire ran a story from Excom yesterday based on a release in which Excom touted its job placement successes. In the release, Excom stated: "Excom Education’s Express IT training and job placement program provides graduates with a guaranteed IT job within four months of completing the course.  Currently, we are recording an average of seven jobs per graduate being offered by employers." 

In its own release, the ACCC stated Justice Edmonds declared on Friday that Zanok engaged in unconscionable conduct by requiring foreign IT job seekers to pay for IT training in circumstances where it knew, or ought to have known, that the job seekers were seeking paid jobs in the Australian IT industry and not IT training. Further Zanok knew, or should have known, that the students were typically from overseas, needed jobs to become permanent residents and only paid for the training because of the guarantee of paid employment at its end.

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