Bill
Education Legislation Amendment (Provider Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2017
passed, as at 2017-08-16. Education and Training portfolio.
- Sponsor
- Not recorded
- Portfolio
- Education and Training
Recorded stages
- introduced — 2017-06-01
- second reading — 2017-06-01
- second reading — 2017-08-08
- second reading — 2017-08-08
- third reading — 2017-08-08
- introduced — 2017-08-09
- second reading — 2017-08-09
- second reading — 2017-08-10
- second reading — 2017-08-10
- third reading — 2017-08-10
- passed — 2017-08-10
- royal assent — 2017-08-16
Divisions
No divisions recorded. Most questions are decided on the voices; this does not establish that a bill was unopposed.
Plain-language summary
Written by a model from the explanatory memorandum; not the record, as at 2017-06-01.
This bill would change laws for higher and international education to stop dishonest providers from exploiting student loan schemes.
It would give regulators stronger powers to check providers, require them to be fit and proper, and ban deceptive marketing and barriers to students quitting their studies.
The changes would apply mainly to private non-university providers offering FEE-HELP courses, not to universities listed in Tables A, B or C of the Higher Education Support Act.
- Amend the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 to let TEQSA consider the history of related entities and require all registered providers and their key personnel to be fit and proper persons.
- Amend the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 to strengthen fit and proper person checks, expand reporting obligations, and extend information sharing with the Overseas Students Ombudsman and enforcement bodies.
- Amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to require students to be genuine, academically suited, and have a reasonable completion rate to keep FEE-HELP, and to ban unscrupulous marketing and barriers to withdrawal.
- Introduce civil penalties for non-compliance under HESA and make it subject to monitoring under the Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act 2014.
- Increase financial viability and transparency requirements, including requiring general purpose financial statements from larger providers and that their auditor be a registered auditor under the Corporations Act 2001 or approved by TEQSA.
- Create a six-month exclusion period after a failed provider application and allow exemption for bodies established by Commonwealth, state or territory laws from the body corporate requirement.
Private non-university higher education providers and their students, international education providers, and the regulators TEQSA, the ESOS agency, and the department responsible for education and training.
Sources
em
billhome
frl act