Bill
Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment Bill 2019
passed, as at 2019-10-30. Education portfolio.
- Sponsor
- Not recorded
- Portfolio
- Education
Recorded stages
- introduced — 2019-07-25
- second reading — 2019-07-25
- second reading — 2019-09-12
- second reading — 2019-09-12
- third reading — 2019-09-12
- introduced — 2019-09-16
- second reading — 2019-10-23
- second reading — 2019-10-23
- second reading — 2019-10-23
- third reading — 2019-10-23
- passed — 2019-10-23
- royal assent — 2019-10-30
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 2019-07-25.
The bill would change the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 to put into law recommendations from a review of that Act's impact on higher education.
It would simplify the standards framework, alter how TEQSA commissioners and the Higher Education Standards Panel are appointed, and expand when the regulator can share information.
The bill would let an overseas university that TEQSA has not registered use the word 'university' for its Australian operations without penalty, as long as the course is not mainly delivered from Australian premises.
- Remove references to categories of non-threshold standards that have never been created.
- Require TEQSA to tell the Minister and the Panel before starting a quality review that could affect most providers.
- Let an unregistered overseas university offer a course not mainly from Australian premises and use 'university' without an offence.
- Change quorum for TEQSA meetings to a majority of commissioners.
- Expand the skills the Minister must ensure Panel members have and give the Panel oversight of TEQSA's strategic planning and deregulation.
- Allow information disclosure without consent if the entity consents in writing, or to a complainant without the body's consent.
Higher education providers, TEQSA, the Higher Education Standards Panel, overseas universities, and the Minister.
Sources
em
billhome
frl act