Staying informed about recent changes and developments relating to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) is crucial for universities and other higher education providers to inform their risk management and quality assurance processes. To assist universities and other high education providers in that regard, we summarise regulatory changes and developments at TEQSA in 2025 leading into the SOUL Conference in October 2025 and TEQSA Conference in November 2025.
1 TEQSA's Corporate Plan
On 29 August 2025, TEQSA released its Corporate Plan 2025-29 which outlines TEQSA's operating environment 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:
- the Australian Universities Accord reform agenda, which is focused on improving the quality, access, opportunity, affordability and sustainability of higher education in Australia;
- international education, noting the expansion of third-party delivery arrangements and that TEQSA is maintaining a close watch of these arrangements to ensure the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 (Threshold Standards) are upheld to protect the interests of students and the integrity, quality and reputation of Australian higher education;
- student safety and well-being, recording that TEQSA supports the Australian Government’s Action Plan Addressing Gender-based Violence in Higher Education, including the proposed new National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence (in respect of which, see our article 'Preventing and responding to gender-based violence in higher education') and is working closely with the newly established National Student Ombudsman to ensure a united approach. It also records that TEQSA is working to develop a Statement of Regulatory Expectations for student grievance and complaint mechanisms (which was subsequently published in October, and summarised below);
- strengthening corporate and academic governance, noting that TEQSA expects universities to focus on effective governance oversight to ensure they manage and respond to key risks and challenges;
- tertiary harmonisation, recording that a key focus for TEQSA will be to work jointly with ASQA to improve harmonisation of regulatory arrangements across the vocational education and training and higher education sectors, including through the development of a Dual Sector Regulatory Strategy;
- sector integrity and academic quality, recording that responding to risks posed by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) will remain an ongoing priority for TEQSA;
- information security, recording that for TEQSA, the role of regulation on this issue is to ensure providers can evidence the policies, systems, governance oversight, and the assurance activities – external as well as internal – required of them to manage these risks; and
- financial standing, noting that moving forward, TEQSA will continue its focus on the quality of providers’ risk management.
TEQSA says it will, as part of its Corporate Plan, continue to develop and refine its comprehensive regulatory strategy to guide the evolution of its regulatory approach. 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;
- identify, analyse and respond to risks to the sector; and
- ensure compliance with applicable legislation through effective and efficient regulation.
The Corporate Plan also details 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.
2 Dual Sector Regulatory Strategy
As part of the focus on tertiary harmonisation, on 9 September 2025 ASQA and TEQSA released a Dual Sector Regulatory Strategy. The strategy outlines the differences and similarities between the VET and higher education regulatory landscapes, the regulatory burdens imposed on dual sector providers and explores three key opportunities for harmonisation including in relation to information sharing and collaboration, the alignment of evidence requirements and supporting providers to strengthen corporate and academic governance. Implementation of the strategy is now underway.
3 Artificial Intelligence
TEQSA continues to focus on the rapid enhancement of GenAI tools and the impact of those tools on teaching, learning and assessment practices. On 5 May 2025, TEQSA announced it had updated its GenAI knowledge hub, which provides links to a broad range of resources from TEQSA, other government agencies, across the sector and international organisations. TEQSA most recently published a new resource, Enacting assessment reform in a time of artificial intelligence which aims to help institutions address the risks GenAI poses to learning assurance, while also supporting students to use GenAI responsibly and ethically.
4 Legislative and policy changes
In respect of legislative and policy changes:
A new section 194A has been inserted into the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 (Cth) (TEQSA Act), which allows TEQSA to disclose higher education information and personal information to the National Student Ombudsman if the disclosure is for the purposes of assisting the National Student Ombudsman to perform its functions or duties or exercise its powers.
There have been no material amendments to the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 (Threshold Standards) in 2025.
On 5 April 2025, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Fit and Proper Person Determination 2018 (Cth) (Determination) was amended 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 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).
On 9 July 2025, TEQSA published a new TEQSA initial provider registrations policy which establishes a set of principles to inform decision-making in relation to initial provider registrations, and to establish clear expectations for applicants and for TEQSA’s Initial Registration Assessment Team.
5 Consultations
On 2 September 2025, the Government released a consultation paper Modernising and Strengthening TEQSA's Powers to invite views from higher education students, staff, providers and the wider community on the future regulation of Australian higher education and on potential changes to the TEQSA Act to align with Government and community expectations. The consultation paper was released in the content of the current Inquiry into the quality of governance at Australian higher education providers being conducted by the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. The consultation paper focuses on four areas for potential amendment:
- a regulatory system that priorities students;
- a regulator with power to address emerging and systemic challenges;
- opportunities to streamline the regulation of higher education providers; and
- a system that better supports dual-sector providers.
Responses on the consultation paper can be submitted until 5pm on 17 October 2025.
TEQSA also facilitated several of its own consultations through 2025, including consultations in respect of:
- interim regulatory guidance in March, seeking feedback on new regulatory guidance developed to support safety and wellbeing in higher education;
- draft guidance notes in June / July and July / August; and
- fees and charges in September, seeking feedback on proposed changes to TEQSA's Cost Recovery Implementation Statement.
6 Strategies, policies, guidance notes and Statement of Regulatory Expectations (SREs)
As highlighted in its Corporate Plan 2025-29, Statement of Regulatory Expectations (SREs) are a new regulatory tool TEQSA uses to address systemic ongoing or acute emerging risks to compliance with the Threshold Standards.
SREs are not legislative instruments. TEQSA has advised that SREs are designed to give providers greater transparency about how TEQSA interprets the Threshold Standards and what TEQSA looks for in its compliance activities. SREs will set out TEQSA's expectations of the types of actions, improvements and monitoring that providers should be putting in place to understand and manage key issues or risks.
On 29 May 2025, TEQSA published its first Statement of Regulatory Expectations: Compliance with workplace obligations. This SRE outlines TEQSA’s regulatory expectations of registered higher education providers to ensure they are meeting their obligations to their staff under workplace laws (as defined in section 12 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth)), which are largely focussed on ensuring appropriate governance oversight and assurance. Universities should ensure that their relevant governing bodies are receiving reports to align with TEQSA's expectations.
More recently on 3 October 2025, TEQSA published its second Statement of Regulatory Expectations: Student grievance and complaint mechanisms. In the context of reports of student grievances in relation to protests on university campuses in recent years, and the results of the 2021 National Student Safety Survey, this SRE records TEQSA's expectations in relation to student support, policies, staffing, monitoring, review and improvement, and governance and accountability, grounded by reference to the Threshold Standards. The expectations apply to all provider grievance and complaint mechanisms that address student wellbeing and safety, including those concerning decisions that affect students, and student and staff conduct.
TEQSA has also published / updated the following guidance notes and application guides in 2025:
With increased government and public scrutiny in relation to the discharge of TEQSA's regulatory functions, higher education providers must closely monitor developments in relation to its powers, policies and expectations, to maintain their registration in good standing.
