The HE market is changing big-time, but the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) know what it is coming, according its Agency statement in the Budget, Tuesday.
“In the next 10 years, there will be a greater diversity of providers offering education in specialised fields and those fields that have been underserviced by larger institutions,” the agency announces. And it predicts risks to providers, students and the sector’s reputation from;
- “rapid growth” of trans-national delivery,
- cyber security
- foreign interference
- threats to academic integrity, including from AI”
TEQSA is not for turning on the big issue on its patch, deciding whether a provider should be classed as an Institute of HE, a university college, an overseas university or an Australian U. “This is particularly relevant with the research requirements of an Australian university,” the agency states.
This follows TEQSA’s long legal case against the now Australian University of Theology. TEQSA argued long and hard in the Administrative Review Tribunal that the then college did not meet the research requirement to be a university. After years of dispute, the Agency ultimately lost in January,, with the ART calling TEQSA’s case “unnecessarily protracted” and “repeatedly changed in shape and scope to a point where (its) position is … almost unrecognisable.”
Otherwise, TEQSA presents itself as there to help all providers to do the right thing, with priorities including:
- focusing on providers “heavily reliant” on overseas students;
- activity on commercial academic cheating;
- “risk management” of integrity risks to awards;
- improving processes, for, “timely, efficient and effective” regulation.
And in a broad hint that HE institutions should keep themselves nice, TEQSA suggests that it will “proportionately reduce the regulatory demands of providers that can evidence mature and effective systems and consistently exceed threshold standards and protections.”
The agency also specifies how it will help by
- *reducing the “regulatory burden” on dual sector providers;
- “ensure our activities are informed by an understanding of the concerns of students;’” and
- keeping regulation current with “changing trends in delivery” and student demand for quality and value courses.
Just don’t apply to become a university.
