A new Education Legislation Amendment (Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025 has been tabled in Parliament this morning by the Minister for Education, Jason Clare.
Through the Bill for an Act to amend the law relating to education, overseas students and family assistance, and for related purposes, the Government is proposing amendments to multiple legislative instruments, including the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (ESOS Act).
Schedule 1 of the Bill, Amendments relating to overseas students and education, covers amendments to the ESOS Act, Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 and Higher Education Support Act 2003 relating to Indigenous medical students.
Proposed changes to the ESOS Act
This new Bill comes after the Government failed to gain support from the Opposition and the Greens for the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 in its last term, primarily due to the inclusion of Ministerial powers to impose international student caps.
Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that all references to Enrolment Limits (Part 7 of the 2024 Bill), at provider and course level, have been dropped from this new Bill.
According to the Explanatory Memorandum (EM) tabled with the Bill:
“Parts 1‒7 of Schedule 1 are substantially the same as Parts 1‒6 and 8 of the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024”.
There has been some “fine-tuning” to some of the wording in Parts 4 and 5 of Schedule 1, with clarification provided about the meaning of some ambiguous terms, according to the EM.
Proposed changes to the TEQSA Act
Part 9 of the Bill covers proposed changes to the TEQSA Act and is of interest to the international education sector because it relates to courses offered offshore (transnational education).
A key change to the Act is:
Registered higher education providers must be authorised to offer or confer Australian higher education awards for Australian courses of study provided at offshore premises.
The Bill also covers new requirements for applying for authorisation for providing courses offshore, including reporting requirements.
Remaining parts of the Bill
Part 10 of the Bill covers Indigenous medical students and Schedule 2 of the Bill covers Amendments relating to family assistance, unrelated to international education changes.
As the Bill has just been tabled, The Koala hasn’t done a word-for-word comparison or examined what sector feedback from 2024 has not been included.
With the international education sector gathering in Canberra next week for the Australian International Education Conference, this is sure to be a hot topic of conversation.
A copy of the Act and the Explanatory Memorandum is available here.
