TEQSA reads private higher education governance more strictly than it reads a public university's because the risk is different: in a private provider, one person or one family typically owns the company, chairs the board, employs the CEO and holds the lease, and Domain 6 of the Threshold Standards is the regulator's only structural protection against that concentration of control reaching into academic decisions. What TEQSA wants to see is a governing body that can say no to the owner, an academic board that can say no to the CEO, and a record that shows both have done so.
This article explains why the scrutiny is heavier, what assessors look for in Standards 6.1 to 6.3, and what the governance record needs to contain, drawing on fifteen years of TEQSA registration and governance work with private providers.
Why private higher education governance draws closer scrutiny
A public university is established by statute, with a council whose composition is fixed by an Act and an academic board whose authority is delegated by legislation. The structure limits any individual's control before TEQSA ever looks at it.
A private provider has none of that. It is usually a proprietary company, and the Corporations Act gives its directors the power to run it as they see fit. Standards 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 of the Higher Education Standards Framework are therefore doing work for a private provider that legislation already does for a university. In my experience assessors read a private provider's governance section with one question in mind: if the owner wanted to pass a failing student, admit an unqualified one, or cut a course's contact hours to protect margin, what in this structure would stop them?
What TEQSA looks for in Standard 6.1
Standard 6.1 requires a governing body with the independence, expertise and authority to direct the provider, and processes for managing conflicts of interest and for delegating and monitoring delegated authority. For a private provider the operative word is independence. Assessors look for directors with no ownership, employment or financial relationship with the provider, in sufficient number to change the outcome of a vote, and with backgrounds in higher education, finance, law or governance.
They also look for the mechanics of independence: a constitution that does not let the shareholder remove directors at will without cause, a conflicts register that records the owner's interests, and minutes that show a conflicted director absent when the related-party lease or the family member's contract was decided. I have written about the failure modes in the governance mistakes that stall TEQSA applications; in a private provider they are not edge cases but the default condition governance has to be built to counter.
What TEQSA looks for in Standard 6.2
Standard 6.2 requires corporate monitoring and accountability: financial viability, risk management, compliance with legislation, and oversight of any delegated or outsourced function. Assessors look for board papers that show the board receiving financial reports and risk reports at every meeting, questioning them, and acting on them.
The evidence that persuades is an item in the minutes where the board declined to approve something management wanted, or attached a condition, or asked for the matter to come back with more information. A board that has approved everything put before it for three years is, to an assessor, a board that has not been governing. Private higher education governance is judged on its capacity to resist, and the record needs to show that capacity being used.
What TEQSA looks for in Standard 6.3
Standard 6.3 requires academic governance with the authority and independence to oversee academic quality. In a private provider the tension is structural: the academic board decides who is admitted, who passes and what is taught, and each of those decisions has a revenue consequence the owner feels directly. Assessors read the academic board's terms of reference for whether it decides or merely recommends, its membership for external academics who owe nothing to the owner, and its minutes for evidence of academic judgment exercised against commercial pressure.
I have set out what an academic board must actually do in academic governance under TEQSA. The test for a private provider is whether the academic board could refuse to approve a course the CEO has already sold, and whether the record shows that the board understands it has that power.
Leadership and the non-delegation principle
None of this makes owners or CEOs the enemy of good governance. In my experience the private providers that do best with TEQSA are led by people who understood early that a board able to overrule them is an asset, because it makes the provider credible to the regulator, to students and to partners. I have written about that leadership dimension in from boardroom to registration.
The corollary is the non-delegation principle: the governing body is responsible for the application and for compliance, and that responsibility cannot be passed to a consultant, a parent company or the CEO. TEQSA's guidance note on corporate governance describes the expectations in more detail, with the usual caveat that guidance notes are not themselves Threshold Standards. What evidences the standard is a record of the board deciding.
The governance record that satisfies TEQSA
For a private provider, the record is a constitution and terms of reference that establish independence structurally, a register of the owner's interests and the minutes showing them managed, board papers with financial and risk reporting and minutes showing them questioned, academic board minutes showing academic decisions made and occasionally refused, and an annual report from the academic board to the corporate board. Built from the first meeting, that record is inexpensive; reconstructed for the assessor, it is neither convincing nor cheap.
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— a one-page self-assessment against Standards 6.1 to 6.3 written for private providers, drawn from our TEQSA registration and governance work. Get the checklist
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Frequently asked questions
Can the owner of a private higher education provider chair the board?
There is no prohibition, but TEQSA will look for enough independent directors to outvote the owner, a managed conflicts register, and minutes showing the owner absent from related-party decisions. An owner-chaired board with no independent majority draws close scrutiny.
Does TEQSA treat private providers differently from universities on governance?
The standards are the same, but the risk profile differs. A university's independence is fixed by statute, while a private provider must build it through its constitution, board composition and record, so assessors examine those more closely.
What is the most persuasive governance evidence for a private provider?
Minutes showing the board or academic board declining, conditioning or deferring a decision management wanted. Evidence that the governing bodies can and do resist is worth more than any policy.
Can a parent company make decisions for a registered private provider?
The registered entity's own governing body is responsible under the TEQSA Act and cannot delegate that responsibility upward. A parent may set strategy and provide services, but the provider's board must make and record its own decisions.
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.