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Decision: |
Rejected |
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Date of decision: |
28 March 2018 |
| Main reasons for decision: |
The decisions were made on the basis that TEQSA was not satisfied that Rosary Tertiary Institute Australia Pty Ltd (RTI) meets the following provisions of the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2015:
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| Review stage: |
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Decision: |
Rejected |
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Date of decision: |
8 February 2018 |
| Main reasons for decision: |
The decisions were made on the basis that TEQSA was not satisfied that National Business and Technology Institute Pty Ltd (NBTI) meets the following provisions of the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2011:
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| Review stage: |
With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, and where otherwise noted, all material presented on this website is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence.
The details of the licence conditions and the full legal code for the CC BY 3.0 licence are available on the Creative Commons website.
NOTE: The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency must be acknowledged as the author of copyright material.
The following acts and standards govern Australian higher education.
Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Act 2011
The TEQSA Act established us as Australia’s national quality assurance and regulatory agency for higher education. It applies for regulation of higher education through a standards-based quality framework with principles relating to regulatory necessity, risk and proportionality.
Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 (HES Framework)
The Threshold Standards apply to all higher education providers. Set by the Minister for Education on the advice of a panel with expertise in the delivery of higher education, they are the minimum level of achievement that a provider must meet and maintain to be registered to deliver higher education courses of study.
Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (ESOS Act)
The ESOS Act applies to providers offering courses to students in Australia on student visas. These include higher education courses, Foundation Programs (except those delivered by schools), and ELICOS programs delivered by higher education providers.
National Code of Practice for Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2018 (National Code 2018)
The National Code 2018 is a set of nationally consistent standards that protect international students. The National Code governs courses registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS). Only CRICOS courses can be offered to international students studying in Australia on a student visa.
Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF)
The AQF is the national policy for regulated qualifications in Australian education and training. It is delivered through the Australian Government Department of Education in consultation with the states and territories.
These resources will provide you with the latest information on ensuring student wellbeing in higher education and how the Australian Government is addressing this issue.
TEQSA has undertaken a formal stakeholder consultation on an annual basis since 2015-16 to gain insights into views on the agency, its regulatory output and approach to risk. The feedback received also informs strategic initiatives in relation to continuous improvement, sector-wide risk management and stakeholder engagement.
Consultations this year were conducted via a general survey of providers. In order to maintain independence of the feedback received, TEQSA engaged JWS Research to conduct the survey and analysis on TEQSA’s behalf. The findings of the survey, together with TEQSA’s response, can be found below.
TEQSA wishes to acknowledge JWS Research, together with all providers, for their contributions to this year’s stakeholder consultations.
All Australian higher education providers must offer students quality higher education and access to information related to their experience.
The Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 sets out a number of requirements that all providers must meet in order to be registered with TEQSA. The Threshold Standards have been structured to align with student experiences – from enrolment to award of qualification.
In line with the requirements of the Threshold Standards, providers must inform both current and future students in relation to:
If you are unhappy about aspects of your experience with a higher education provider, you should access your providers’ complaints resolution policies and procedures. These policies and procedures should be easily accessible, consistent, fair and confidential. They should also include advice and support on how to resolve your complaint.
In most cases, your complaint should be resolved locally and informally. However, you may need to use your provider’s formal complaints procedures.
We can only accept complaints about a provider’s compliance with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Act 2011 and the Threshold Standards. More information on what we can and cannot accept complaints about is available in our Complaints section.
The Study Australia website is the trusted source of information for prospective international students, their families and agents to learn more about Australia as a place to study.
The website has practical and reliable information to help students make informed decisions about where they'd like to study in Australia, which course and institution best suits their needs, and what the experience can be like when they live and study here.
It also sets out to reassure prospective students about the laws and specialist services in place in Australia, which ensure every individual feels safe, welcomed, supported and protected while in Australia.
Study Australia helps students to understand their rights and responsibilities on issues as diverse as visas, employment, and tuition fees, and is committed to looking after students every step of their study journey.
This Domain (Sections 7.1-7.3) of the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 (HES Framework) encompasses:
TEQSA’s main interest will be in the materials that the provider uses to represent itself and its offerings, whether to particular students or more generally. This can include marketing materials, claims about career outcomes arising from courses of study and the like. Where a provider is represented by agents, we will seek evidence of a formal contractual engagement with the agent(s) that is consistent with the requirements of the Standard, that agents are correctly informed about the provider’s operations and offerings and that the performance of agents is monitored, including that corrective action is taken if necessary. It is expected that much of the evidence required in relation to representation will already be in the public domain (e.g. websites, brochures, prospectuses, advertisements etc.) and that it will be easy for providers to direct us to that material (some materials may be equally applicable to other Sections such as 7.2 and 7.3). We will need to be satisfied that the provider’s representations are accurate, ethical and not misleading.
In relation to Standard 7.1.4, a short narrative about the provider’s use of agents accompanied by examples of existing contractual arrangements, the resources provided to agents and an outline of monitoring arrangements and any corrective actions undertaken could illustrate that this Standard is met, where required. The Standards also call for providers to have controls in place over the way its courses are represented to prospective and current students by any third party, including through third party websites.
Standards 7.2.1 and 7.2.2 require the public disclosure of a range of information, aimed largely at informed choices and participation by students (including international students if applicable). Information about the design and structure of courses, factors taken into account in selection (such as the use of ATAR and other requirements), all obligations and liabilities incurred by students (such as fees and charges and HELP liabilities), and the student support and facilities being made available, must be disclosed transparently. Students should be able to readily access all information needed for them to estimate realistic prospects for admission to each course. All information relating to professional accreditation of the course must be disclosed, as discussed in relation to Section 1.1 and Standard 3.1.5.
TEQSA will need to be satisfied that the information required is indeed publicly available, accessible (including to individuals with special needs) and accurate. While Standard 7.3.1 requires a ‘repository of publicly-available current information about the higher education provider’, we do not require the creation of a dedicated repository that is separate from a provider’s existing sources of information, nor do we seek to prescribe the format of its presentation. For example, a provider may for operational reasons, choose to present its information in groupings or blocks of data that are different from the groupings specified by the Standard, and in various sections of its website. This is not of concern, provided that the information requirements of the Standard are met (providers should note that Standards 7.3.1 and 7.3.2 impose particular requirements on the content of some information required by Section 7.2).
In relation to Standard 7.2.3, where applicable, we will expect a provider to be able to describe, and illustrate by example, the mechanisms that are in place to monitor achievement of statutory obligations in relation to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 and the National Code of Practice for Providers of Education and Training to Overseas Students 2018 in relation to international students.
In relation to Standard 7.2.4, we will expect to see that any formal offer made to students contains warnings of potential changes to fees and charges or other known changes expected in an intended course of study.
Information in the public domain is subject to monitoring at any time. This may mean that a provider will not always be required to submit evidence in relation to Section 7.2 in submissions for regulatory purposes. On the other hand, monitoring of a provider’s public information may raise concerns that lead to a request for further information/clarification outside of the provider’s normal regulatory cycle.
Standard 7.3.1 contains a number of specific requirements for publicly available information. As mentioned in relation to Section 7.2, TEQSA does not seek to specify the form of presentation of this information, however it does expect the requirements of Standard 7.3.1 to be readily accessible, ideally from a single starting point. There could be, for example, a link from a provider’s website home page to another page that will in turn link to all of the types of information listed in 7.3.1 (a to m).
The information to be made available about the provider’s financial standing is specified in a separate Guidance note and is designed to give prospective students some assurance that the provider is a going concern. This information is separate to what we require in order to assess the financial risk of a provider, either as part of the annual risk assessment or as part of the assessment for registration, re-registration, course accreditation or re-accreditation.
Information about enrolment numbers (7.3.1i) in the list of a provider’s course(s) should give prospective students an indication of the scale of the provider and learning environment. The information should be based on recent actual enrolments in the case of an existing course, or realistic projections in the case of a new course. A range could be used (e.g. ‘we expect to enrol between x and y students’). In the case of nested courses, the numbers should be for the whole course.
As long as the requirements of Standard 7.3.2 are met in achieving Section 7.2, we will not require further reiteration in relation to 7.3.2. For Paragraph 7.3.3a, we will require a description and, possibly, a demonstration of the capability of the provider’s information system to meet the requirements of this Standard. Achievement of Paragraph 7.3.3b will require identification of the policies, processes and practices in sufficient detail for us to be satisfied that this Standard is met and that predictable risks are being mitigated as far as is reasonably possible for the nature and scale of the provider’s operations - including the onus on the provider to issue qualifications legitimately (as required by Paragraph 6.2.1h). In relation to Standard 7.3.3d, we will require a description of the systems, processes and reporting that support achievement of this Standard (and support the corporate accountability of the governing body in this respect [Standard 6.1.1]). This may be achieved by reference to mechanisms already described in relation to other Standards (e.g. Institutional Quality Assurance or Governance and Accountability) and, if so, reiteration of the detail for the purpose of demonstrating compliance with this Standard will not be required.
Once we are satisfied that a provider has demonstrated that its systems meet, and are likely to continue to meet, Standard 7.3.3 (a-c), we may require only limited evidence of continuing compliance with these Standards. However, will always have an interest in reviewing the management of complaints and misconduct (Paragraph 7.3.3c), irrespective of the capability of a provider’s information management systems.
The following guidance notes can be accessed at our Guidance notes page, or from the links below:
This Domain (Sections 4.1-4.2) of the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 (HES Framework) encompasses:
This Section of the Standards is intended to apply to all research carried out by higher education providers (whether within the context of research training or not). TEQSA recognises that providers who are receiving funding from national Australian funding bodies, such as the Australian Research Council (ARC) or the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) or other major agencies, must meet stringent and onerous requirements attached to their funding that are more detailed than the requirements of the HES Framework, including various codes of conduct. Definitions of research are discussed in our Guidance Note on Research and Research Training, available on our Guidance notes page.
The Standards in this Section represent more basic requirements, but we encourage providers who do not receive funding from the major funding bodies to use their higher requirements as a guide for their own operations (see Reference points), taking account of the scale and nature of their research mission. Where those requirements are already demonstrated to be met for other purposes, either in full or in relation to the matters encompassed specifically by Standard 4.1.2, we will not require further demonstration in relation to compliance with Standard 4.1.2. We interpret Standard 4.1.2 to broadly include all staff in a research team, such as technical specialist staff, not just academic staff.
As to the system for recording research outputs (Standard 4.1.3), a system required by major funding bodies will suffice but we would otherwise expect the system to be appropriate to the scale and purposes of the provider (for example, an authorised spreadsheet could suffice, provided it is accurate and current). This recording system will also serve to provide evidence of research activity for the purpose of meeting other Standards (e.g. 3.2.3, 4.2.2, 4.2.3).
Providers who undertake research training must meet the requirements of Section 4.1 as well as those of 4.2. TEQSA expects to see that research training is guided by and undertaken in accordance with an institutionally-approved policy framework covering at least the items specified by Section 4.2. The Standards also require research training to occur in an environment of research/scholarly/creative activity (such as on-going projects within a community of scholars, leading to research publications in relevant fields) with adequate resources and with competent continuing supervisory arrangements as specified by the Standards. The Standards do not permit a course in research training (i.e. a higher degree by research) to be offered in an environment that is otherwise devoid of research activity. Providers should note the requirements for specified learning outcomes for research training and additional specific assessment requirements for research training (see Section 1.4).
The following guidance notes can be accessed at our Guidance notes page, or from the links below:
