TEQSA academic policies are ready when three things are true: each policy maps to a specific Threshold Standard, each one was adopted by the body with authority to adopt it, and each one can be shown operating in the provider's records. A template gets you a document. It does not get you any of those three things, which is why assessors can tell a bought policy suite from a working one within a few pages.
This article sets out which policies TEQSA expects, how a good policy is built, who must approve it, how to control versions, and the trap that catches most first-time applicants. It draws on fifteen years of TEQSA registration and accreditation work, most of which has involved reading policy suites that were either far too long or not really the provider's own.
Which TEQSA academic policies do assessors expect to see?
The Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 does not contain a list of required policies. It contains standards, and a policy is one of the ways a provider shows it meets a standard. In practice, though, the academic side of the framework generates a predictable set. Domain 1 calls for policies on admission, credit and recognition of prior learning, progression and intervention, assessment and moderation, and the award of qualifications. Domain 2 calls for policies on student wellbeing and safety and on grievances and complaints, with an independent external appeal route.
Domain 3 needs course design and review, staffing and scholarship, and learning resources. Domain 5 is where the academic quality machinery lives: course approval and accreditation, academic and research integrity, monitoring and review, and delivery with other parties. Domain 6 requires the academic governance framework itself, usually a charter or terms of reference for the academic board and its committees, and a delegations schedule. A complete inventory is in our companion article on essential TEQSA-ready policies and procedures. Since TEQSA's June 2024 request for information on generative AI, I also expect to see a generative AI policy or an explicit treatment of AI within the academic integrity and assessment policies.
How a good academic policy is structured
Every policy I have seen work has the same six parts. A purpose statement in one or two sentences saying what the policy is for and which standard it serves. A scope clause saying who and what it covers, including whether it applies to third-party delivery and to non-award courses. A set of principles, which are the commitments the provider makes and which assessors quote back to you. A procedure, either in the policy or in a separate document, that says who does what, in what order, within what time.
Then a responsibilities section that names positions and bodies, not individuals. And a review clause with an owner, a review date and the approving authority.
The proportions matter. In my experience a policy that runs to twenty pages is usually a policy and a procedure and a guideline stapled together, and nobody reads it. A policy of three to five pages with a separate procedure is easier to maintain, easier to evidence and easier for an assessor to map. Definitions should be consistent across the suite; if "unit" means one thing in the assessment policy and another in the credit policy, TEQSA will notice, because the assessor reads them on the same afternoon.
Adoption by the right body
This is where TEQSA academic policies most often fail. The Threshold Standards distinguish between corporate governance under Standard 6.1 and academic governance under Standard 6.3, and each body has its own province. Academic policies, meaning those on admission, assessment, integrity, course approval and the like, should be approved by the academic board. Corporate policies, on finance, risk, delegations and the like, belong to the governing body. A suite in which every policy carries the note "approved by the CEO" tells an assessor that the boards described in the application are not the ones actually running the provider.
Assessors check the adoption trail. They look for the academic board minute that records the policy being considered, the questions asked, any amendments made, and the resolution. They compare the approval date on the document with the date the board first met. I have seen applications in which a full policy suite was "approved by the academic board" three weeks before the academic board was constituted. Nothing else in that application was read charitably.
How to build a board that can do this properly is covered in academic governance under TEQSA.
Version control and the policy register
TEQSA reads policies as living documents, and it expects to see the machinery that keeps them alive. That means a policy register listing every policy, its owner, its approving body, its current version, its approval date and its next review date. It means a version history inside each document that records what changed and why. And it means a controlled location, usually a policy library on the website or intranet, from which superseded versions are removed.
The register is more than housekeeping. At renewal of registration, the self-assurance report has a ten-page limit and relies on an evidence index; the policy register is one of the first things the index points to, because it shows at a glance whether the provider has reviewed its policies on the cycle it promised. A register in which every review date has passed is a self-assurance report that has failed before the assessor reads it. This is also the document that answers the standard question about how policies are communicated to staff and students, since a public library with a version history is the evidence.
The template-versus-adapted trap
Most providers start with a template, and there is nothing wrong with that. The trap is stopping there. A template written for a multi-campus university will refer to faculties, deans, a research office and a student union that a college of eighty students does not have. It will set timeframes the college cannot meet and describe committees that do not exist. An assessor reading a policy that refers to bodies absent from the organisational chart concludes, correctly, that the policy is not in use.
Adapting a template means more than search-and-replace on the provider's name. It means asking, for each clause, whether this is actually how we do it, whether the position named exists and holds that delegation, and whether the timeframe is one we have met. It also means deleting what does not apply. In my experience a well-adapted suite is shorter than the template it came from.
The same applies to generic AI-drafted policies, which have become common since TEQSA moved from Confirmed Evidence Tables to self-assurance. They read plausibly and map to nothing, and they now draw more scrutiny rather than less. Our guide to aligning with the national higher education standards explains why the mapping matters.
Evidence that the policy operates
The Threshold Standards are written in the present tense, and TEQSA reads them that way. Standard 1.4 does not ask whether the provider has an assessment policy; it asks whether assessment is valid, fair and moderated. The policy is a claim. The evidence is the moderation record, the grade distribution reviewed by the academic board, the appeal that was lodged and determined within the published timeframe.
So each academic policy should generate a trail: a form, a register, a report, a minute. When we help a provider design a policy suite, we ask for each one what artefact it produces and where that artefact will be filed. If the answer is nothing, the policy is either unnecessary or unimplemented. For a new provider with no students, the evidence is that the policies have been tested in a pilot, reviewed by the academic board, and connected to the systems that will produce the records once teaching begins.
My advice on building the suite
Start from the standards, not from a folder of documents. List the academic standards, decide which policy serves each, and write the minimum number of short, consistent policies that cover them. Take each to the right board, record the discussion, and put it in a register with a review date you will keep. Then run the provider on them, because the application is not the policy suite. The application is the evidence that the policy suite is how the provider actually works.
Download the Policy Suite Index
— a mapped list of the academic and corporate policies TEQSA expects, with the standard each serves and the body that should adopt it, drawn from our TEQSA registration and governance work with private providers. Get the index
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Frequently asked questions
Does TEQSA publish a list of required policies?
No. The Threshold Standards set out requirements, and policies are one way of meeting them. TEQSA guidance notes describe what assessors look for, but guidance notes are not themselves Threshold Standards.
Who should approve academic policies?
The academic board or equivalent body responsible for academic governance under Standard 6.3. Corporate policies on finance, risk and delegations belong to the governing body under Standard 6.1.
Can we use policy templates for a TEQSA application?
Yes, as a starting point. The policies must then be adapted to the provider's actual structure, positions and processes, adopted by the right body, and shown operating in the provider's records.
How often should academic policies be reviewed?
Each policy should carry its own review date, commonly every two to three years, and the policy register should show the cycle being met. Overdue reviews are read by TEQSA as evidence that the policies are not being used.
Dr Brendan Moloney is CEO of Darlo Higher Education, Australia's largest specialist TEQSA consultancy. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, is a Cambridge University Press author on governance in higher education, and has advised private providers on registration and course accreditation for more than fifteen years.