The Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA) is very pleased that governments and other sector stakeholders have now joined us in advocating for a student-centric approach to tertiary education policy and investment. This has been a foundation principle of ITECA’s policy positioning for some years now.
The recently released consultation paper on modernising the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) and its enabling legislation, the TEQSA Act is an important piece of work. When the Minister for Education, the Hon Jason Clare MP, announced this consultation and highlighted it would include a focus on ensuring a “…regulatory system that puts students first”, ITECA was naturally pleased.
Many of Australia’s higher education challenges have been well-ventilated in the media. But less well publicised are the challenges facing the independent higher education sector which comprise more than 75% of all higher education institutions regulated by TEQSA.
Independent higher education institutions, including dual-sector institutions, balance cross-sector regulatory frameworks in both higher education and skills training and often across jurisdictions. In some cases, reforms proposed in the Consultation Paper carry promise, and with that also some risk, especially in implementation. If implemented with transparency, clarity and in partnership with the sector, however, changes could finally put students at the centre of the outcomes they are seeking. Putting students at the centre is, after all, the framing from the recent Economic Roundtable and Productivity Commission papers, and would streamline regulatory burden on institutions, and ensure genuine innovation across the system.
Student Focus: Cut the Red Tape
There is no question that tertiary education regulatory frameworks must evolve. A move from compliance box-ticking to an agile combination of proactive and responsive oversight that prioritises student outcomes is necessary. For TEQSA, this would ensure the regulator becomes a model for others and a body genuinely capable of 21st century sector oversight.
Independent providers know all too well that duplicative audits and cyclical assessments do not automatically protect students. Rather, these processes are more likely to sap resources from teaching, stifle the development and adaptation of innovative offerings, and bury talent.
The TEQSA Act needs a sharper focus on proactive intervention based on lead indicators of performance combined with lag indicators currently used. The new higher education regulatory architecture is set to see a proliferation of new regulators, functions and staff, making TEQSA’s job as the national regulator more obscure and difficult.
However, students benefit when tertiary education regulators, including TEQSA, act quickly to address real risks. These might be related to poor teaching, financial instability, or misleading marketing of other genuine risks.
Risk-Based Regulation: Smarter, Faster, Fairer
Regulation in the 21st century is data and intelligence-led, proportionate, and embraces both lead and lag indicators to inform actions. Assessments by tertiary education regulators must occur where risk actually resides, not because of an artificial cycle.
Basic regulatory functions, however, such as sector engagement and changes to registration or delivery, should be streamlined and closely coordinated with ASQA for dual-sector providers, minimising or removing overlap and ambiguity.
When issues arise, possibly relating to scale or severity, a regulator must have the authority to respond. Whether TEQSA already has such powers or requires additional ones will be among the issues keenly discussed and debated in these consultations.
This consultation is a good initiative, and ITECA is looking forward to good faith engagement from all participants. Any reform in this area must cut unnecessary bureaucracy, not expand it. We must act on risk and not expand routine, and empower all providers to innovate for genuine student benefit.
Felix Pirie is the CEO of the Independent Tertiary Education Council of Australia (ITECA).
The Koala thanks Felix and ITECA for permission to publish this piece, which first appeared in the ITECA Newsletter (22/9/25).
