The role of TEQSA standards is to set a single legal floor beneath every higher education award issued in Australia, so that a student, an employer or a foreign government can rely on a bachelor degree from a forty-student private college in the same way as one from a large university. The Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 does that job by defining the minimum a provider must meet to be registered and to have its courses accredited, and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 gives TEQSA the power to assess against it, impose conditions and, in the last resort, cancel registration.
This article explains what the standards do for each of the three parties they serve, how they are enforced in practice, and where their reach stops. It draws on fifteen years of TEQSA registration and renewal work with private providers.
What the role of TEQSA standards is for students
For a student, the standards are a guarantee that some things are true of every registered provider regardless of size or ownership. Domain 1 of the Threshold Standards requires fair admission, defensible credit, orientation and support for progression, assessment that confirms learning outcomes, and a qualification that means what it says. Domain 2 requires facilities, equity, wellbeing and safety, and a working complaints process. Domain 7 requires that what the provider tells the student is accurate and that the student's records are kept properly.
The value to the student is that these are not aspirations. They are the conditions of the provider's registration, and a provider that stops meeting them can be made to answer for it. The National Register is where a student can check registration and accreditation, and where conditions are published. A plain reading of each domain is set out in our plain-English guide to the Threshold Standards.
What the standards do for providers
For a provider, the standards are the specification against which it is admitted to the sector and allowed to stay. Because the specification is public and uniform, a private college that meets it is entitled to the same registration as anyone else, which is what makes it possible for a new entrant to compete with an established institution.
They also do something for a provider internally. Domain 6 requires a governing body with independence and authority, an academic board with real control of academic quality, and monitoring that reaches the whole operation. In my experience the providers that treat those requirements as an imposition run worse than the ones that treat them as a management system. Why they sit at the centre of the sector's architecture is discussed in our article on TEQSA standards as a key component of Australian higher education.
What the standards do for the public
For the public, the standards protect the currency of the Australian qualification. Every award on the Australian Qualifications Framework issued by a registered provider is backed by the same minimum, which is what allows employers to trust a credential from a provider they have never heard of, and what supports the acceptance of Australian qualifications abroad.
The standards also protect public money and public confidence. Standard 6.2 requires financial viability so that students are not stranded, and the fit and proper person requirements in the TEQSA Act keep people with a history of regulatory failure out of control of a provider.
How the standards are enforced
TEQSA does not conduct audits in the sense a vocational provider would recognise from ASQA. It assesses applications for registration, renewal and course accreditation against the standards, it conducts compliance assessments where risk or a complaint warrants, it visits sites, and it issues requests for further information. The outcomes available to it under the Act are registration for a period of up to seven years, conditions on registration, shortened periods, refusal, and cancellation.
The enforcement model is risk-based, and it has become more so with the move from Confirmed Evidence Tables to self-assurance. TEQSA no longer asks a renewing provider for evidence against every standard; it asks for a self-assurance report and tests it against the provider's history, its annual data and the strength of its evidence. That raises the evidentiary bar rather than lowering it, because the provider is now vouching for its own compliance and the regulator is checking whether the vouching is true. The statutory machinery is set out in our article on the TEQSA Act.
Where the reach of the standards stops
The standards are threshold standards. They define a minimum, not excellence, and a provider that meets every one of them may still be a poor place to study. They are also silent on many things people assume they govern: they do not set fees, prescribe curriculum, rank providers or require any particular teaching method. TEQSA's guidance notes fill some of the space, but guidance notes are not themselves Threshold Standards and cannot be enforced as if they were.
The standards also stop at the boundary of higher education. Vocational qualifications are ASQA's domain, and the National Code governs the treatment of international students separately, though TEQSA administers it for higher education providers. A good deal of unnecessary compliance effort goes into obligations that do not exist.
My view of what the standards are for
The role of TEQSA standards is best understood as a promise the sector makes to everyone outside it. Providers keep the promise, TEQSA checks that they do, and the standards are the text of the promise. Read that way, the document is the reason a private provider's degree is worth anything, and the providers that understand this tend to pass assessment with the least difficulty.
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Frequently asked questions
What are the TEQSA standards?
The Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021, a legislative instrument with seven domains covering students, learning environment, teaching, research, quality assurance, governance and information. They are the minimum a provider must meet to be registered and have courses accredited.
Are TEQSA guidance notes legally binding?
No. Guidance notes explain how TEQSA reads particular standards and are useful, but they are not themselves Threshold Standards and cannot be enforced as law.
What can TEQSA do if a provider does not meet the standards?
Under the TEQSA Act it can impose conditions on registration, shorten the registration period, refuse an application for registration, renewal or accreditation, and in serious cases cancel registration. Conditions are published on the National Register.
Do the Threshold Standards apply to vocational education?
No. Vocational education and training is regulated by ASQA under a separate framework. The Threshold Standards apply only to higher education providers and courses.
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.