Higher education consulting services in Australia fall into eight kinds of work: initial TEQSA registration, course accreditation, governance reviews, external course review, policy suite development, CRICOS registration, renewal of registration and responding to requests for further information. Each is scoped differently, priced differently and carries a different division of labour between the consultant and the provider's own governing bodies.
This article describes each service, what it should and should not include, and how to scope it before signing, drawing on fifteen years of TEQSA registration work and on the engagements I have declined because they were scoped to fail.
What does initial registration consulting cover?
Initial registration is the largest engagement, running in my experience eighteen to twenty-four months from a decision to proceed to a TEQSA decision. The work covers a readiness assessment against every Threshold Standard, a gap plan, the design of corporate and academic governance, recruitment advice for both boards, the evidence build for each standard, drafting in the form TEQSA's application guide requires, and support through the preliminary and substantive assessments.
It should be scoped around the non-delegation principle: the consultant advises and drafts, the board decides, and the record must show it. An engagement in which the consultant presents the provider's strategy to its own board produces exactly the governance record TEQSA reads as a red flag. Scope the work as advice to a governing body doing its own job, and price it in stages tied to readiness rather than lodgement. Our comprehensive guide to TEQSA consultants sets out the questions to ask before appointing anyone.
Course accreditation and external course review
Course accreditation consulting takes a course from concept to an application TEQSA can assess: learning outcomes mapped to AQF level descriptors, unit and assessment design including secured assessment points, staffing matrices, learning resources, and approval through the academic board. A single course cycle of design, external review and academic board approval runs three to four months in my experience, and the fees for accreditation with initial registration are $6,000 preliminary and $44,700 substantive per course, excluding GST.
External course review is a distinct service and should be bought from a different person. The reviewer is an independent academic in the discipline who reports to the academic board on whether the course meets the standard for its AQF level and field. A consultant who designed the course cannot credibly review it. Our article on what a TEQSA consultant and accreditation consultant does explains where the two roles meet.
Governance reviews and policy suites
A governance review examines the corporate governing body and academic governance against Standards 6.1 to 6.3: composition, independence, terms of reference, delegations, conflicts management, the flow of information between the two bodies, and the record in the minutes. It is mandatory at renewal, where the renewal guide requires independent reviews of the governing body and of academic governance with an action plan, and it is valuable before initial registration as a rehearsal.
Policy suite work builds or repairs the policies and procedures a provider needs across the seven domains of the Threshold Standards. The service to avoid is the template set adopted in one resolution. Higher education consulting services worth paying for draft policies to the provider's actual structure, take each through the relevant governing body with a record of consideration, and leave the provider with a register showing when each policy is due for review. The number of policies matters less than the evidence that they operate.
CRICOS, renewal and RFI response
CRICOS registration follows higher education registration and is a separate application under the ESOS Act, assessed against the National Code 2018. TEQSA's guidance on applying suggests a decision on a high-quality application within three to six months, and the consultant's work covers the written agreement, agent management, student support, course progress monitoring and the other National Code standards, plus the PRISMS and Tuition Protection Service arrangements.
Renewal consulting is now organised around the self-assurance report, a document of no more than ten pages with an evidence index, which TEQSA introduced when it retired Confirmed Evidence Tables. The service is a structured self-assessment, an evidence audit against the standards TEQSA is likely to test given the provider's risk profile, the independent governance reviews, and the drafting of a report that is honest about weaknesses and specific about actions. RFI response is the emergency service: a request for further information arrives with a deadline, and the consultant's job is to read what TEQSA is really asking, assemble the evidence that answers it, and stop the provider lodging a defensive essay. The best RFI response is the one never needed.
How should higher education consulting services be scoped?
Three rules cover most cases. First, scope to the standard, not to the document: the deliverable is evidence that a standard is met, and the document is one part of that. Second, scope the decision-maker: every engagement should state which governing body will consider the consultant's work and how the record will show it. Third, scope the exit: the provider should own every policy, register and report at the end, in a form its own staff can maintain without the consultant.
Our survey of higher education consultants in Australia compares how firms structure and price these services. The price differences are smaller than the differences in what gets left behind.
My view: buy advice, not applications
The higher education consulting services that serve a provider well all have the same shape. The consultant knows what the regulator will see, says so plainly, and hands the decision to the people who are responsible for it. The ones that fail produce a document the provider did not write, for a board that did not read it, describing systems that do not run. TEQSA has become very good at telling the difference, and so should the provider before it signs.
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Frequently asked questions
What do higher education consultants in Australia actually do?
They advise providers on TEQSA registration, course accreditation, governance, policy, CRICOS, renewal and regulatory correspondence, preparing evidence and drafting applications while the provider's governing bodies make the decisions.
Can one consultant both design and externally review a course?
No. External course review must come from an academic independent of the course design, reporting to the academic board. A review by the designer is not an external view.
What is included in a renewal of registration engagement?
A self-assessment against the Threshold Standards, an evidence audit, independent reviews of the governing body and academic governance with action plans, risk management evidence and the drafting of the ten-page self-assurance report and evidence index.
How should a provider scope a consulting engagement?
Around the standard to be evidenced, the governing body that will decide, and the state in which the provider's staff will own the work afterwards, with pricing tied to readiness milestones rather than lodgement.
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.