Their poverty is aggravated by the fact that newly arrived permanent residents cannot access any social security support until they have been here for 2 years. This means most VET courses have to be done in big self-managing schools with strong links to the community and local business and industry. TAFE, but recently arrived young people are not confident about travelling to TAFE or different campuses and many cannot find their way round large TAFE facilities. Employers do not understand requirements and needs of ESL students unless schools go to explain them explicitly. Because they have arrived so recently, their small numbers and settlement problems, recently arrived immigrant and refugee communities do not have established business and industrial enterprises which could be used for VET for ESL students from the relevant communities.
Recent arrivals have no access to family and informal or formal community networks of employers.
Many ESL students and their families do not perceive the potential value of vocational education because of their perception of it as having a low status and because some have unrealistically high expectations for their education. Victoria University of Technology's guaranteed entry scheme is more attractive to ESL students than vocational education. Many times they feel intimidated by the practicalities of how to get there and where to go when they get there. Jargon can be difficult for ESL students to understand, eg competencies, log books, hands-on assessment and so on. Work placements of ESL students and the cultural implications.