The student services consultants TEQSA providers engage do three things well when they do them at all: they review the provider's support services against the specific standards that govern them (1.3 on orientation and progression, 2.2 on diversity and equity, 2.3 on wellbeing and safety and 2.4 on grievances and complaints), they help design a support model that will still work when the student body triples, and they set up the records that show the services are used and that they change outcomes. The third is the part most providers miss and the part TEQSA reads.
This article describes that work in the order it is done, drawing on fifteen years of TEQSA registration and compliance work with private providers whose student services were built by one committed person and then had to become a system.
Which standards govern student affairs
Student support is not one standard but a cluster across Domains 1 and 2 of the Threshold Standards. Standard 1.3 requires that students are given orientation and the academic and other support they need to succeed, that those at risk of not progressing are identified early and offered assistance, and that progression is monitored. Standard 2.2 requires that the provider's arrangements accommodate a diverse student body and that equity groups are supported. Standard 2.3 covers wellbeing and safety, including a safe environment, access to advice and services, and critical incident management. Standard 2.4 requires an accessible complaints and appeals process, including access to an external body.
Each of these is written as an outcome in the present tense. Assessors do not ask whether a student support policy exists. They ask how the provider identified the students at risk last term, what it offered them, how many took it up and what happened to their results.
The review: services against standards, then against reality
The first thing competent student services consultants TEQSA providers bring in will do is map every existing service to the clause it serves and then test each one against operation. A provider will typically have an orientation program, an academic skills service of some kind, a counselling referral arrangement, a critical incident procedure, a complaints policy and, if it has international students, the additional support arrangements the National Code 2018 requires, which are examined in our article on supporting international students under TEQSA and ESOS.
The test is whether each service leaves a record of use. In my experience the orientation program does, because attendance is taken; the academic skills service often does not, because it is one staff member helping students who ask; the counselling arrangement is a phone number on a poster; and the at-risk process exists in the progression policy but was last run when the compliance officer had time. The review report says so plainly, clause by clause.
Designing support that scales
A small provider's support model usually depends on a few people knowing every student. That works at eighty students and fails at three hundred, and TEQSA assesses whether the model will hold across the registration period, not whether it holds today. The design question is therefore which parts of support must be systematic (at-risk identification, referral, complaints handling, critical incidents) and which can remain relational.
The systematic parts need a trigger, an owner and a record. At-risk identification is triggered by defined thresholds (attendance, non-submission, failed early assessment) drawn from the student management system, owned by a named role, and recorded in a register showing contact made and outcome. The design work is modest, but it converts a personal practice into a service that a new staff member can run and that an assessor can see. Our companion article on the role of student services and support in higher education consulting goes further into the model.
Evidence of use and outcomes
This is the work that distinguishes a service that satisfies a provider from one that satisfies the regulator. TEQSA looks for two kinds of evidence: that students use the services, and that the services make a difference. Use is evidenced by counts (orientation attendance, skills appointments, at-risk contacts, referrals, complaints lodged and resolved) reported each term. Outcomes are evidenced by following the cohorts: the progression rate of students contacted through the at-risk process against those who were not, the completion of students who used the skills service, the time taken to resolve complaints.
Those figures go into a standing student support report to the academic board, and the board's minutes show it received the report and asked questions. Where the figures show a service is not being used, the board decides what to do, and the action is tracked. That closed loop is what an assessor is looking for under Standards 1.3 and 5.3 together, and it is where the impact of consultants on students and faculty is actually measured.
What student services consultants TEQSA providers engage should not do
A consultant should not write the student support policy and hand it over. Staff will not run a policy they did not build. A consultant should not design a support model sized for the application rather than for the provider, because the assessor will ask who staffs it. And a consultant should not present the provider's compliance as assured on the consultant's authority; the governing body is responsible for the provider's compliance and the record must show it deciding. The right role is to review, to design with the staff who will run the services, and to leave behind the reporting that makes the services visible.
My view: support is evidenced by what happened to students
The providers whose student services impress assessors are not the ones with the longest list of services. They are the ones that can say which students were at risk last term, what was done, and what happened next, with numbers, and can show the academic board discussing it.
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Frequently asked questions
Which Threshold Standards cover student support?
Mainly Standard 1.3 on orientation and progression and Standards 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 on diversity and equity, wellbeing and safety, and student grievances and complaints. Standard 5.3 governs how the provider monitors and improves those services.
What evidence of student support does TEQSA look for?
Records showing services are used (attendance, appointments, at-risk contacts, referrals, complaints) and evidence that they affect outcomes, such as progression of students contacted through the at-risk process, reported to the academic board and acted on.
Does a small provider need a dedicated student services team?
Not necessarily, but it needs systematic processes for at-risk identification, referral, complaints and critical incidents, each with a trigger, an owner and a record, so that support does not depend on a few individuals knowing every student.
What do student services consultants TEQSA providers engage actually deliver?
A clause-by-clause review of services against Standards 1.3 and 2.2 to 2.4, a support model designed with staff to scale with enrolments, and the reporting that evidences use and outcomes to the academic board.
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.