It is as important as ever for universities and other higher education providers to keep across recent changes and developments relating to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), to inform their risk management and quality assurance mechanisms. To assist universities and other higher education providers in that regard, we set out in this article our review of regulatory changes and developments at TEQSA in 2024 leading into the SOUL and TEQSA Conferences in November 2024.
TEQSA's Corporate Plan
On 28 August 2024, TEQSA released its Corporate Plan for 2024-28 which outlines the operating environment of TEQSA and its objectives and key activities over the next four years. The Corporate Plan acknowledges that TEQSA will be operating in an environment of significant and sustained reform over the next four year period. The Corporate Plan highlights in that regard:
- the Australian Universities Accord reform agenda, which is focused on improving the quality, accessibility, affordability and sustainability of higher education in Australia;
- recent and impending reforms impacting international education, including the Government's draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework and impending amendments to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (Cth);
- ensuring academic integrity in light of changes in the sector arising post-COVID, including online student engagement, new models for delivery of work-integrated learning and ensuring academic integrity for remote or online assessment, and in light of expansions of third-party delivery arrangements;
- student safety and well-being including in light of the Government's Action Plan Addressing Gender-based Violence in Higher Education including the new National Student Ombudsman;
- strengthening corporate governance, highlighted as an issue in the Australian Universities Accord and in TEQSA's compliance monitoring activities;
- tertiary harmonisation with a key focus for TEQSA in the coming period being to work jointly with the Australian Skills Quality Authority to improve mobility and harmonisation of regulatory arrangements across the vocational education and training and higher education sectors;
- sector integrity in light of rapid developments in technology including the continued growth of file sharing websites, commercial academic cheating services and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools which pose serious threats to academic integrity;
- information security including the serious risks posed to Australian higher education by cyber security and the role of regulation in assisting providers identify and manage these issues; and
- financial standing of higher education providers in light of the financial impacts of COVID-19, which TEQSA continues to identify through its risk assessment processes.
TEQSA says it will, as part of its Corporate Plan, develop a comprehensive regulatory strategy over the coming year to guide the evolution of its regulatory approach, improvements to data management and analysis capacity, and workforce development. The stated purpose of that strategy is to ensure TEQSA can deliver quality assurance and regulatory outcomes that protect and enhance the integrity, quality and reputation of Australian higher education sector.
The comprehensive regulatory strategy is also intended to support TEQSA deliver its objectives as identified in the Corporate Plan:
- promote and support good practice and effective self-assurance across the sector, which is to be achieved through (among other things) engagement with stakeholders (including providers, peak bodies, students, the Department of Education and Minister for Education) and provision of assistance to providers in relation to meeting their regulatory obligations and promoting quality enhancement;
- identify, analyse and respond to risks to the sector, which is to be achieved through (among other things) the devotion of resources to understanding the evolving needs of the sector and providers, assessing and responding to issues and enhancing the value of its regulatory services through a modern, risk-based regulatory model;
- ensure compliance with applicable legislation through effective and efficient regulation, which is to be achieved by (among other things) reviewing and adapting TEQSA's regulatory model and practice, aligning risk and compliance approach with legislated requirements and principles of regulatory best practice and ensuring regulatory assessments are streamlined and coordinated effectively.
The Corporate Plan also includes details on the key activities that TEQSA will take to meet each of these objectives, together with the performance measures and targets it will utilise to monitor progress against those key activities.
TEQSA's Compliance Report
On 10 September 2024, TEQSA released its Compliance Report for 2023. The Compliance Report summarises TEQSA's compliance priorities, activities and observations in 2023, and outlines its compliance priorities for 2024.
In her foreword to the Compliance Report, TEQSA's Chief Executive Officer expresses that TEQSA will, in addition to its compliance activities, support widespread reform in the sector including the proposed National Student Ombudsman, the Government's Action Plan Addressing Gender-based Violence in Higher Education, the Australian Universities Accord reforms and the International Education and Skills Strategic Framework.
The Compliance Report outlines the following six compliance priorities for 2024:
- Upholding wellbeing and safety, with a particular focus on systemic failures to provide adequate assistance and support mechanisms for students, address barriers for students with a disability and adequately inform staff and students about grievance mechanisms;
- Ensuring academic integrity, focusing on issues such as monitoring students at risk, deterioration or failure of academic quality (including online delivery), admission of ill-equipped students and oversight of third-party delivery;
- Protecting sector integrity, with a focus on fraud and criminality, including implementation of academic integrity policies and procedures, incentives for non-genuine students, oversight and management of education agents and commercial academic cheating services;
- Strengthening corporate governance, which includes issues pertaining to changes in ownership and cross-ownership, insufficient expertise in higher education, inadequate risk management and underpayment of staff;
- Maintaining information security, which includes issues pertaining to identification and management of cyber security risks, protection of data and intellectual property;
- Monitoring financial standing, including issues which impact providers' financial viability and sustainability such as financial mismanagement and resilience to shifts in revenue sources.
We have witnessed TEQSA's focus on these matters – particularly in relation to protecting sector integrity, strengthening corporate governance and monitoring financial standing – in 2024. Providers should continue to use the Compliance Report to inform risk management and quality assurance mechanisms for the coming period.
Artificial intelligence
TEQSA foreshadowed their focus on the rapid enhancement of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools and the impact of those tools on teaching, learning and assessment practices in correspondence from the then Chief Commissioner to all Australian higher education providers in October 2024 and at the TEQSA Conference in November 2023.
Since that time, TEQSA has engaged extensively with the sector and issued publications pertaining to GenAI kicking off with the publication of Assessment reform for the age of artificial intelligence in November 2023.
On 5 March 2024, the then TEQSA Chief Commissioner wrote to all Australian higher education providers foreshadowing a request for information from providers to submit a credible institutional action plan oversighted by appropriate governance mechanisms to address the risk GenAI poses to award integrity. That request was made on 3 June 2024, and providers were asked to respond by 3 July 2024. TEQSA has since confirmed by way of an update on its website that it has moved into the analysis stage of the request for information, during which TEQSA's Higher Education Integrity Unit will comprehensively review the information received with a focus on the way providers are adapting teaching, learning and assessment approaches to account for GenAI.
TEQSA has also introduced an Artificial intelligence page on its higher education good practice hub, which is intended to provide resources to assist providers and their staff meet new challenges and benefit from opportunities afforded by advances in GenAI. In that regard, TEQSA most recently published The evolving risk to academic integrity posed by generative artificial intelligence: Options for immediate action in August 2024.
Legislative and policy changes
There have been no recent material amendments to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 (Cth) (TEQSA Act) or the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 (Cth) (Threshold Standards), nor has there been any material updates of TEQSA's policies (or new policies published) in 2024.
Providers can however anticipate revisions to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Fit and Proper Person Determination 2018 (Cth) (Determination) in the near future following consultation with the sector which closed in May 2024. TEQSA proposed in that consultation to expand the Determination so that TEQSA may have regard to:
- whether a relevant person has been found guilty of a foreign offence;
- whether a relevant person has been found not to be a fit and proper person for the purposes of any law of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory; and
- whether the public is unlikely to have confidence in a relevant person’s suitability to make or participate in making decisions that affect a provider's affairs
in determining whether a relevant person is fit and proper for the purposes of the TEQSA Act.
Among other things, the purpose of the proposed amendments is to align the Determination with the fit and proper person requirements in the Standards for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) 2015 (Cth) and the Higher Education Support (Fit and Proper Person) Instrument 2019 (Cth).
Guidance notes and other materials
TEQSA has published / updated the following guidance notes relating to the Threshold Standards in 2024:
Universities and providers can also anticipate updates in the near future to guidance notes on Course Design, Learning Outcomes and Assessment, Learning Resources and Educational Support, Staffing, Corporate Governance, and Corporate Monitoring and Accountability, Diversity and Equity, Student Grievances and Complaints, Wellbeing and Safety following consultations with the sector which closed in late 2023 and 2024.
TEQSA has updated its Application guide for renewal of registration in October 2023 and August 2024 to accord with TEQSA's revised assessment approach announced at the TEQSA conference in November 2023. In that regard, re-registration applicants are now required to submit with their applications:
- a self-assurance report of no more than 10 pages which focuses on the function of a provider’s governing bodies, noting their fundamental importance to the provider’s operations, including their accountability for the quality of education delivered, their compliance with the Threshold Standards and other legislative requirements; and
- for universities, a research report of no more than 5 pages which evidences their governing body's oversight of research quality, having regard to the standard of research set out in Criteria B1.3.16-19 of the Threshold Standards.
Applicants for renewal of registration should ensure that they are cognisant of those requirements together with the associated guidance provided by TEQSA in the application guide to ensure their readiness for submission of their renewal of registration application when it falls due.
Contact us to develop your next TEQSA registration process.
