The Australian | 24 July 2013
The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency has announced that a less onerous process for reregistration for providers with a solid track record will begin in January, with fast-tracked reaccreditation of courses perhaps closer to mid-year.
TEQSA also promises a simplified risk framework and no more than one quality assurance survey a year.
The regulator’s survey of third party arrangements, initially served up to the sector in parallel with a review of English language standards, was a cause for complaint leading up to the red tape review announced by former minister Craig Emerson in May.
Emerson promised top quality universities less vetting under an “earned autonomy” model and called upon TEQSA to advise ”immediate actions” to reduce the regulatory burden.
In its latest newsletter, the agency says there is “scope for a reconsideration of the checks and balances in the higher education regulatory framework, and hence, TEQSA’s practice of regulation”.
It sets out a series of steps, including streamlining of approvals, but says these actions mostly involve the speeding up of a reform program that TEQSA already had in train before Emerson’s intervention.
Meanwhile, as part of its first round of re-registrations, TEQSA has handed out approvals to the Australian National University, Flinders, Monash, Murdoch, and the University of Technology, Sydney. Others approvals are due soon.
