The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) has used the ANU imbroglio to make the case for more powers.
Officials from the Agency appeared at a Senate committee hearing Thursday, where ANU came up.
Senator David Pocock asked officers if they, in general terms, had enough powers to deal with “cases where there have been gross failures of leadership or serious allegations raised against senior university leadership?”
To which CEO Mary Russell responded that during the agency’s continuing compliance assessment of ANU they had encountered issues that “have been difficult to resolve.”
Her example was TEQSA’s “strong view” that the ANU Council should hold on recruiting a new VC until the regulator’s compliance assessment was complete, by April. “We find that we are reliant on persuasion rather than on firm powers to restrain the university from doing something or to require them to do something.” Dr Russell said.
“I think it is an example of where there can be a stand-off when a council says, 'we have the right or obligation to do certain things'.”
General Counsel Nicholas Riordan had other examples. He suggested the regulator’s legislation needed improving so it included a positive duty for it to comply with the standards framework, which ASQA’s act does. He mentioned ANU as an example and pointed out that a disagreement could end in the Administrative Appeals Agency, “something that leads to significant cost, complexity and uncertainty.”
And he pointed to the HE Threshold Standards, which “deal with issues at a level of breadth and generality.” Issues such as, “transparency of operations of council and matters relevant to recruitment and oversight of recruitment processes for senior officials,” the sorts of things that have come up at ANU.
TEQSA may not have long to wait for what it wants – there has been a review of its Act and an announcement of changes is expected this week.