A TEQSA accreditation consultant helps a registered or prospective provider get a course accredited by mapping it to the Threshold Standards and the AQF, organising external review and benchmarking, preparing the academic board to approve it, and assembling the evidence TEQSA will read. The consultant does not design the course, sit on the board or make the decision. If they do, the accreditation is at risk, because TEQSA is assessing the provider's academic governance, not the consultant's.
This article defines the role, describes what a sound engagement looks like from first meeting to decision, and offers a practical test for choosing an adviser. It draws on fifteen years of TEQSA course accreditation work, in which I have seen the difference between a consultant who strengthens a provider and one who quietly replaces it.
What course accreditation asks of a provider
For a provider without self-accrediting authority, every course must be accredited by TEQSA before it is offered. Under the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021, the course must meet Standard 1.4 on learning outcomes and assessment, Standard 3.1 on course design, Standard 3.2 on staffing, Standard 3.3 on learning resources and Standard 5.1 on course approval, and the qualification must sit at the right level of the Australian Qualifications Framework. The 2026 fees for a registered provider are $5,200 for preliminary assessment and $19,100 for substantive assessment per course, with nested related courses at $1,300 and $4,800.
What TEQSA reads first is not the course. It is the process by which the provider approved it. Standard 5.1 requires course approval by a body with academic authority, informed by external referencing and the advice of people with expertise in the field, and the accreditation application must show that happening. In my experience most course accreditation problems are governance problems in disguise, which is why a TEQSA accreditation consultant spends as much time on the academic board as on the curriculum.
What a TEQSA accreditation consultant actually does
The first task is a gap analysis. The consultant reads the draft course against each relevant standard and the AQF level descriptor and tells the provider, in writing, where it falls short: outcomes written at level 7 for a level 9 award, assessment that does not test the stated outcomes, a volume of learning that does not match the duration, or unit content that has no evident scholarly basis. That report goes to the course team and, in a well-run provider, to the academic board.
The second task is external referencing. Standard 5.1 and Standard 5.3 expect course design to be benchmarked against comparable courses and reviewed by external experts. The consultant identifies suitable comparators, structures the benchmarking so it compares outcomes and assessment rather than marketing copy, and briefs the external reviewers so their reports address the standards. The reviewers themselves must be independent academics or practitioners; a consultant who acts as the external reviewer of a course they helped shape has compromised both roles.
The third task is evidence. Accreditation applications succeed or fail on whether the claims made are supported: staff CVs that show the qualification one level above the course, a library and learning resources plan with actual holdings, a moderation procedure with a completed example, minutes showing the academic board interrogating the proposal. The consultant builds the evidence index and, crucially, points out where the evidence does not yet exist. Our broader survey of the profession, TEQSA higher education consultants: a comprehensive guide, covers the other services that sit around accreditation.
Governance is part of the accreditation job
The reason a TEQSA accreditation consultant must understand academic governance is that the accreditation application is, in substance, a demonstration of Standard 6.3 in operation. TEQSA wants to see that the academic board considered the external reviews, asked questions, required changes and only then approved the course; that the governing body received the academic board's recommendation and approved the resources; and that the record shows all of it.
The non-delegation principle applies here without exception. A consultant can prepare the papers that go to the academic board. The board must read them, discuss them and decide, and the minutes must show that it did. I have seen applications in which the consultant's name appears as the presenter of the course to the board, the author of the external review brief and the drafter of the board's own resolution. TEQSA reads that as an academic board that was not really involved, and the course approval falls with it.
The role of advisers across the wider process is examined in the role of consultants in navigating TEQSA accreditation.
How to choose a TEQSA accreditation consultant
Ask four questions. First, how many courses at this AQF level and in this field of education have you taken through accreditation, and what happened to them? A consultant should be able to describe outcomes in general terms without naming providers.
Second, who will do the work? Firms sometimes sell a senior name and deliver a junior; the person mapping your course to the standards should have done it many times. Third, what do you refuse to do? The right answer includes sitting on the academic board, acting as external reviewer for a course they advised on, and drafting minutes for meetings they did not attend.
Fourth, what does your written advice look like? Ask for a sample gap analysis with the identifying details removed. If it is a list of standards with ticks, keep looking.
Good advice names the specific deficiency, the standard it offends and the change that fixes it. Sector-wide data on the size and shape of the consulting market is in higher education consultants in Australia: the data, and it shows how varied the field is.
What the engagement should look like
A sound accreditation engagement runs, in my experience, over three to four months for a single course from first draft to academic board approval, then the assessment period once lodged. It starts with a scoping meeting attended by the academic director and the chair of the academic board, not just the CEO. It produces a written gap analysis within the first weeks, a revised course with a benchmarking report and external reviews within two to three months, and an academic board approval with a proper record before lodgement.
Throughout, the consultant reports to a named person inside the provider and the provider's staff do the academic work. The consultant's deliverables are advice, structure, review and the evidence index; the provider's deliverables are the course, the decisions and the records. When TEQSA issues a request for further information, the consultant helps interpret it and shape the response, but the response is the provider's, signed by the provider and approved by its boards. An engagement structured this way is slower at the start and much faster at the end, because the application it produces is complete, specific and true.
What a consultant cannot do for you
A consultant cannot make an unqualified teaching staff qualified, cannot invent scholarship that staff have not done, and cannot make an academic board independent by writing better terms of reference. Since TEQSA replaced Confirmed Evidence Tables with self-assurance, generic applications have become easier to produce and easier to detect, and an accreditation submission that reads as though it could belong to any provider draws more scrutiny than a rougher one that is plainly the provider's own.
My advice is to hire an adviser to make the provider better at accreditation, not to do accreditation for it. The first kind of engagement leaves behind a course team and an academic board that can accredit the next course with less help. The second leaves behind a dependency, and a governance record that TEQSA will eventually read.
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Frequently asked questions
What does a TEQSA accreditation consultant do?
They map a course against the Threshold Standards and the AQF, identify gaps, organise external benchmarking and review, prepare the academic board to approve the course, and assemble the evidence index for the application. They do not design the course or make the decisions.
How much does TEQSA course accreditation cost for a registered provider?
In 2026 the preliminary assessment fee is $5,200 and the substantive fee is $19,100 per course, with nested related courses at $1,300 and $4,800. Fees exclude GST and are not refundable.
Can a consultant act as the external reviewer of a course?
Not for a course they have advised on. External review under Standard 5.1 must be independent, and a consultant reviewing their own work compromises both the review and the accreditation.
How long does course accreditation take?
In my experience three to four months of preparation from draft to academic board approval, followed by TEQSA's assessment after lodgement. Requests for further information add weeks, so a complete application is the fastest route.
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.