Category: Academic standards

The Australian Tertiary Education Commission legislation, Part 5, ATEC, TEQSA and the Threshold Standards

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Under the legislation to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, introduced into Parliament late last month, ATEC would advise the minister on the Higher Education Threshold Standards. All higher education providers must meet these standards as a condition of registration. The enforcement agency is the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.

This post compares the current system for setting the Threshold Standards with how this would happen if the ATEC legislation passes unamended.

Current process for setting the Threshold Standards

The Threshold Standards are a legislative instrument – and so disallowable by either the Senate or the House of Representatives – made by the education minister: section 58 of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011. Under the same provision the minister can make other quality-related standards, as part of a Higher Education Standards Framework.

The minister must not make a standard unless a draft has been developed by the Higher Education Standards Panel (discussed shortly): section 58(3)(a) TEQSA Act 2011.

The minister must consult with the state and territory education ministers: section 58(3(b)(i) TEQSA Act 2011.

The minister must consult with the research minister if that is a separate role (not currently): section 58(3(b)(ii) TEQSA Act 2011.

The minister must consult with TEQSA: section 58(3(b)(iii) TEQSA Act 2011.

The minister must have regard to any advice or recommendations given by the Panel or the consultation parties: section 58(4) TEQSA Act 2011.

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The Australian Tertiary Education Commission legislation – Part 1, Objectives

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Today the government introduced legislation to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, which currently operates in an interim capacity without any direct legal power.

This bill is mainly about ATEC’s structures, objectives and functions with the critical funding legislation to follow next year.

The ATEC legislation will take a few posts to describe. Due to other commitments I may not cover it all this week. I am likely to revise parts of what I write after discussing the bill with others.

All legislative references, unless otherwise specified, are to the Universities Accord (Australian Tertiary Education Commission) Bill 2025.

Basic structure of ATEC

As previously announced, there will be three commissioners – a full-time Chief Commissioner, a full-time First Nations Commissioner, and a third part-time Commissioner: sections 9, 56(1), 57(1) & 58(1). All will be appointed by the minister for education for up to five years: sections 56(4), 57(4) & 58(4).

High level objectives

Section 13 of the bill sets out a ‘National Tertiary Education Objective’ to which ATEC must have reference when exercising its powers. At first glance it oddly does not directly refer to anything educational. The objectives are to

  • promote a strong, equitable and resilient democracy &
  • drive national, economic, and social development and environmental sustainability

In exercising its powers, ATEC must have regard to the objective of improving outcomes for persons facing systemic barriers to education. The current main equity groups are mentioned: ATSI, persons with disability, low SES, and people living in regional areas: section 14.

The lack of direct reference to education is less surprising in the broader context of this bill. With the Universities Accord final report, which recommended ATEC, higher education policy hit peak instrumentalism. This bill reflects that cultural and political change. Apart from the bill’s not very convincing references to university missions, higher education no longer has policy backing for its own academic purposes. It is just there as another policy tool to achieve government objectives. (The strategic examination of research and development will try to clean out the last remaining funds for research not aligned to government goals.)

The national, economic and social development goals are reflected in the detail of the ATEC bill. But it is unclear how ATEC will contribute to democracy, strong or otherwise, unless we define ‘democracy’ as universities implementing the policies of the elected government.

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The education minister should not have the power to cancel ‘classes of courses’ for international students

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Update 28/11/2025: Last night the Senate passed the ESOS amendment bill with Coalition amendments. While I still believe this provision counts as very poor public policy – for reasons exanded up in my Senate inquiry submission – the Coalition changes do improve things somewhat. These are noted in the text below.

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The government is having another go at its 2024 Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) legislation, reintroducing it earlier this month minus the enrolment caps that saw it blocked in the Senate last November.

This post draws on and adds to things I wrote last year about proposed ministerial powers to suspend and cancel ‘classes of courses’.

The amendments discussed in this post were partly why I regarded the 2024 ESOS amendment bill as the single worst piece of higher education related legislation to come before the Parliament in my career.

What took it beyond standard bad policy was its use of broad ministerial discretion with minimal constraints on how it is exercised. That creates rule of law problems, making it hard to know in advance what the rules are. If passed, the amendments could lead to some education providers being arbitrarily punished for the actions of others.

Legislative references are to the section numbers of the ESOS Act 2000, as they are or as they would be if the bill passes unamended.

A mass course cancellation power

The bill gives the education minister power to simultaneously suspend or cancel multiple ESOS course registrations at multiple providers: division 1AB. It does this by making the unit of regulation a ‘class of courses’ – the definition of which is discussed below.

This mass cancellation power differs from existing laws that give the ‘ESOS agency’ (TEQSA in higher ed, ASQA in VET) power to suspend or cancel the registration of specific courses or specific providers: sections 83 to 92. It also differs from the current power of the immigration minister to issue a ‘suspension certificate’ to a provider. This can be done in specified circumstances such as fraud in visa applications, students breaching visa conditions, and other visa issues: sections 97 to 103.

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The National Student Ombudsman and academic life

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A previous post outlined the contents of the Universities Accord (National Student Ombudsman) Bill introduced into parliament last week. This post examines its implications for academic life.

Although the bill generally exempts curriculum content or assessment methods from review by the Ombudsman, the minister will be able to over-ride these exemptions with a legislative instrument.

Students will use the Ombudsman to pressure academics for special consideration and to avoid discipline for misconduct. This creates an incentive for academics to accept questionable claims and overlook likely cheating rather than risk wasting time on an Ombudsman investigation.

The post’s section references are to the bill.

Academic judgment

The Ombudsman legislation does not permit student complaints ‘to the extent that the action involves the exercise of academic judgment’: section 21AD(3)(c).

The bill’s explanatory memorandum gives as examples of excluded complaints (p. 23) ‘decisions about the academic merit of a grade awarded, the content of a curriculum, and teaching and assessment methods.’

But section 21AD(4) undoes this by stating that exceptions can be over-ridden by the National Student Ombudsman Rules.

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What’s new in the university funding agreements, part 3: new rules on early offers

Andrew Norton1 Comment

Earlier this year I wrote a couple of blog posts on the 2024 university-Commonwealth funding agreements signed late last year. Revised agreements were signed in May 2024. These agreements include new rules on early offers. This post argues that early offers rules should be legislated separately and not included as a condition of Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding.

Restrictions on school leaver early offers

As foreshadowed by the minister in February, university funding agreements now restrict school leaver early offers. The basic rules are 1) No offers to Year 11 students; 2) No offers to Year 12 students prior to September; and 3) Offers must be conditional on successful completion of a senior secondary certificate of education.

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The revised support for students policy

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The draft support for students guidelines received significant negative feedback from the higher education sector. As I wrote in a couple of blog posts, the guidelines interfered in matters of academic judgment and interacted with existing regulations in ways that create duplication and confusion.

Academic judgment

I’m glad to say that the interference in academic judgment provisions have been removed in the enacted support for students guidelines.

Regulatory overlap

The support guidelines explanatory statement discusses their relationship with the higher education threshold standards, which are administered by TEQSA. It says that the threshold standards set the ‘minimum’ requirements while the support for students policy, which is administered by the Department of Education, sets ‘additional, complementary requirements on providers to support their students.’

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The complex rules around admitting, funding and supporting higher education students

Andrew Norton1 Comment

[Update 18/12/2023: Some parts of this post have been revised as the enacted student support guidelines replaced the draft guidelines. The revisions are noted in the text.]

The support for students policy discussed in a previous post adds to an already complex system for admitting, funding and supporting higher education students. Universities have strongly argued against additional bureaucratic processes in areas covered by existing regulation. This is a positive sign – a much better strategy than taking under-funded nuclear submarine student places – and I hear that the final support for students guidelines will be at least somewhat better than the draft guidelines.

The content below is my attempt to understand how all the different rules in this space overlap, interact and potentially contradict each other. While the support for students parts may change soon (the legislation operates from 1 January 2024 [Update 18/12/2023: Now delayed until 1 April 2024]), some existing rules look redundant to me. A warning: this post contains mind-numbing details and distinctions.

Initial admission to a course

The most general rules apply on admission to a course, with TEQSA responsible for enforcement. These protect high-risk students and appear in the higher education threshold standards. They require that:

“Admissions policies, requirements and procedures are … designed to ensure that admitted students have the academic preparation and proficiency in English needed to participate in their intended study, and no known limitations that would be expected to impede their progression and completion”: Part A, section 1.1.

Order of funding priority

For Commonwealth supported students selection decisions must, in the “provider’s reasonable view” be made on “merit”: section 19-35(2) of the Higher Education Support Act 2003. The provider can, however, take into account “educational disadvantages that a particular student has experienced”: section 19-35(3).

As I noted last year, this requirement is in tension with university practices and government policies on admitting members of equity groups in preference to other applicants. The equity group categories are only proxies for educational disadvantage; membership does not say anything certain about a “particular student”.

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The growing threats to academic decision making

Andrew Norton2 Comments

Update 18/12/2023: The enacted student support guidelines remove the interference in academic judgment discussed in this post. The changes are highlighted in the relevant parts of the text.

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The current government, and the Accord review that it commissioned, have – with the exception of ministerial approval of ARC grants – taken an interventionist approach to higher education policy.

My commentary has focused on micromanaged allocations of student places (eg here and here). While these policies are misguided, the allocation of funding is within the historical scope of the Commonwealth’s higher education powers. However there is also a pattern of actual or proposed interference in matters previously left to academic or university judgment. This is unusual in a country where university autonomy over academic matters has mostly been respected.

Curriculum matters

Next year a new loan scheme will begin for business start-up programs, STARTUP-HELP. Unusually, its legal guidelines include detail about required course content. Normally universities are self-accrediting within standards enforced by TEQSA, an organisation deliberately designed to be at arms length from government.

The content requirements (below) don’t seem unreasonable in themselves, and were perhaps necessary to identify what exactly STARTUP- HELP was supposed to cover. The bigger practical problem here is that this loan scheme is unnecessary. But the precedent of the government directly regulating course content is not one I like being set.

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Mapping Australian higher education 2023 – official release

Andrew Norton2 Comments

Update 20/12/2025: More recent data here.

Mapping Australian higher education 2023 is now available from the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods website.

Update 30/10/2024: There is a later version of Mapping 2023’s data here.

Update 26/10/23: A reader has pointed out that list of FEE-HELP NUHEPs is incomplete. A column of names from the original Excel file was omitted during production. The full list is available here. This list also includes three non-FEE-HELP providers registered by TEQSA since the pdf version was finalised. A corrected version of Mapping with the full list of NUHEPs, as of mid-2023, is here.

If anyone has noticed other errors please let me know.

The Universities Accord universal learning entitlement – how might it work?

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One Universities Accord interim report suggestion is a ‘universal learning entitlement’. But what would this mean, and how would it differ from what we have now?

The first part of this entitlement is to support Australians in obtaining a tertiary qualification. But it aims to go beyond ‘traditional targets’, such as for higher education or VET, to meet ‘a range of skills and other objectives’.

The interim report defines entitlement funding as ‘an appropriate combination of a public subsidy, a student contribution that would be paid through an income contingent loan … and, for some lifelong learning, an appropriate employer contribution’.

Current limits on higher education enrolments

While no Australian citizen is specifically disqualified from accessing a funded place in higher education, in practice three admissions-related obstacles can stand in their way.

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