Legislation Introduced for the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). (March 23, 2011)

Senators Chris Evans (Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations) and Kim Carr (Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) today  introduced legislation to establish the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA).

If regulation alone were the panacea for significant improvement of learning and research in Australia's tertiary education sector, we'd be assured of being home and hosed.

Commenting on the legislation Senator Evans said: "As the higher education sector goes through a period of expansion, it is important for Australia to have a national system of regulation to assure the quality of all providers," and Senator Carr added: "TEQSA’s provider standards will underwrite public confidence in research and research training, alongside coursework teaching and learning."

According to their media release TEQSA will combine the state and commonwealth regulatory and quality assurance activities thereby reducing the number of federal, state and territory bodies from nine to one.

Senator Evans noted: "This will improve the consistency of regulation across the country and enable appropriate action to be taken when issues of poor quality are identified. It will ensure that the anticipated future growth of the higher education system does not come at the expense of quality."

As always the devil will be in the detail but the tertiary sector may be buoyed by emphasis in the media release that:

A key feature of the legislation is the inclusion of three basic principles of regulation to which TEQSA must adhere. These principles require TEQSA to take into account the scale, mission and history of each provider and allow high-quality, lower-risk providers to operate without unnecessary intrusion.

The Government has also explicitly made provision for the transfer of a provider’s self-accrediting authority to the new regulatory environment upon the establishment of TEQSA. A university’s authority to self-accredit will be further enshrined in the Provider Standards.

Responsibility for administering TEQSA is shared between the Minister for Tertiary Education and the Minister for Research.