The professional development TEQSA expects a provider to show is not a training budget but a record: evidence that academic staff maintain currency in their discipline and in higher education teaching, that staff and students have been trained in academic integrity and the use of generative AI, that board members have been inducted into their governance responsibilities, and that all of this has been planned, delivered, recorded and reported to the academic board. Standard 3.2 makes staff development a requirement, and the record is how the requirement is evidenced.
This article explains what the PD record needs to contain and why each element matters to an assessor. It draws on fifteen years of TEQSA registration and compliance work, in which the absence of a PD record has been one of the quieter but more persistent causes of requests for further information.
Where professional development sits in TEQSA's standards
Standard 3.2 of the Threshold Standards requires that academic staff are active in scholarship that informs their teaching, and that staff are given the induction, professional development and performance review needed to fulfil their roles. Standard 5.2 requires that staff and students are informed about academic integrity and that staff are supported to uphold it. Standard 6.1 requires a governing body with the expertise to govern, and Standard 6.3 requires academic governance competent to oversee academic quality.
Read together, those provisions make professional development a compliance matter across three groups: academic staff, professional staff and the governing bodies. None of them prescribes hours or content. What they require is that capability is maintained, and TEQSA tests that through the record.
Discipline currency and higher education teaching
For academic staff, the professional development TEQSA looks for has two parts. The first is discipline currency: engagement with the field through conferences, professional bodies, industry practice, publication or curriculum work, recorded per person in a scholarship register and reported annually to the academic board. I have covered the qualification and scholarship expectations in faculty and staff in higher education, and the staffing profile in the role of faculty and staff in TEQSA registration.
The second part is teaching in higher education specifically. A practitioner who is current in their profession is not automatically competent to design assessment at AQF level 9 or to moderate marking. Assessors look for induction into the provider's assessment and moderation practices, and for ongoing development in learning design, feedback and the scholarship of teaching. For a provider drawing staff from industry or from the VET sector, this is the element most often missing, and it is the one that explains many of the assessment problems assessors later find.
Integrity and generative AI training
Since TEQSA's June 2024 request for information on generative AI, which required every provider to lodge a credible institutional action plan overseen by governance, staff training on AI and assessment integrity has become an expected part of the PD record. The action plan is a commitment; the training log is the evidence that it was carried out.
What assessors want to see is a dated record of who attended what: sessions on the provider's academic integrity policy and its investigation procedure, on redesigning assessment for the AI era along the lines of TEQSA's 2025 Enacting assessment reform resource, and on the provider's own rules about AI use in teaching and marking. Student-facing guidance is part of the same set. A provider whose action plan promised training that its PD record does not show has, in effect, told TEQSA it did not do what it said.
Governance induction for board members
The element providers most often overlook is the governing bodies. Standard 6.1 requires a board with the expertise to govern a higher education provider, and independent directors recruited from business or the professions rarely arrive with a working knowledge of the Threshold Standards, the TEQSA Act or the difference between corporate and academic governance. Academic board members drawn from industry face the same gap.
In my experience, assessors read board induction records closely at renewal, because they are direct evidence of whether the board understands what it is responsible for. A structured induction covering the standards, the provider's compliance obligations, material change notification and the board's own role, followed by an annual governance briefing, is what I recommend. The minute that records it is the evidence.
The PD record as evidence
Every element above reduces to a single question an assessor will ask: can the provider show that capability was planned, delivered and reviewed? The answer is a PD plan approved annually, a log of attendance and completion by person, a link from the plan to performance review, and a report to the academic board that closes the loop. I have described how consultants help build this in supporting ongoing learning through professional development initiatives.
The standards are in the present tense. A PD policy shows that development is intended; the record shows that it happens. Professional development TEQSA cannot see in the record is, for assessment purposes, development that did not occur.
Building the record before it is needed
A provider that starts its PD register at registration and keeps it current has, by renewal, seven years of operational evidence that its staff and governing bodies have maintained the capability the standards require. A provider that reconstructs the record in the six months before lodgement has a document that assessors will recognise as reconstructed. The first is cheap and the second is not, and the difference is a habit rather than a budget.
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Frequently asked questions
Does TEQSA require a minimum number of professional development hours?
No. Standard 3.2 requires that staff receive the induction, development and review needed for their roles, without prescribing hours. TEQSA tests the requirement through the PD plan, the attendance record and the report to the academic board.
Do board members need professional development for TEQSA purposes?
Yes in practice. Standard 6.1 requires a governing body with the expertise to govern, and assessors look for a structured induction into the Threshold Standards and the board's responsibilities, plus periodic governance briefings, recorded in the minutes.
What AI training does TEQSA expect staff to have?
Training that delivers the provider's own generative AI action plan: the integrity policy and investigation procedure, assessment design for the AI era, and the provider's rules for AI use in teaching and marking. The dated training log is the evidence.
Is discipline currency the same as professional development?
They overlap. Discipline currency is engagement with the field and belongs in the scholarship register; professional development also covers higher education teaching, assessment, integrity and governance, and belongs in the PD plan and log. Assessors expect both.
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.