TEQSA has warned higher education providers looking to increase their capacity that they should first address elevated visa refusal and student attrition rates.
Speaking at last week’s TEQSA Talks webinar, TEQSA Executive Director of Regulatory Operations Jen Bahen said the regulator continued to have concerns about international education integrity and was seeing a rise in the number of providers with high rates of student non-commencement, attrition and visa refusals. TEQSA was also seeing inaccurate or delayed reporting of information in PRISMS.
Bahen said providers diversifying or growing their businesses needed to consider how they would effectively manage risks relating to recruitment, admission and support for overseas students, as well as governance oversight of those risks. While providers may have robust systems in place, she said the measures themselves were not always effective, and providers could have limited evidence that they were being monitored for effectiveness or changed when they were not working.
TEQSA has also seen an increase in providers seeking to increase their capacity or add locations.
“We expect providers in these circumstances to first address any elevated visa refusal rates and student attrition before making an additional application to increase your student capacity,” Bahen said.
The regulator is also maintaining its focus on education agents. Bahen said providers should have robust oversight of all contracts with education agents, declare third-party involvement in recruitment activities, monitor agent performance and ensure students referred by agents were genuine and engaged in learning.
Providers were also expected to take prompt corrective action where there was, or was likely to be, misrepresentation or unethical conduct. TEQSA said it was observing business practices that encouraged or facilitated unnecessary transfers of students from other providers where those transfers may not be in the student’s best interests, as well as practices that were not transparent in dealings with students or in the management of education agents.
The warning follows the recent joint TEQSA and ASQA sector alert on the ban on the payment of education agent commissions in relation to onshore transfers. TEQSA also pointed providers to existing sector alerts on the management of education agents and on the recruitment, admission and support of international students.
Providers that observe poor integrity practices elsewhere in the sector were encouraged to report them to TEQSA, including anonymously where necessary. Bahen said individual reports may not always contain enough detail to be immediately actionable, but submissions contributed to TEQSA’s broader regulatory intelligence.
TNE reporting instrument close to finalisation
TEQSA also provided an update on implementation of the new requirements for transnational education, including the authorisation regime for offshore delivery.
Bahen said applications were now open for providers seeking authorisation for offshore delivery and TEQSA had received at least one application. Application guidelines and forms are available, with providers encouraged to speak to TEQSA before applying.
The regulator is also close to finalising its new TNE reporting instrument following public consultation. TEQSA received 32 submissions, with Bahen saying there was broad support for the core information proposed for collection in the first year.
“Essentially, we want to understand who delivers what, where, and with whom,” she said.
Some submissions sought greater clarity around particular questions and definitions, which TEQSA is now working through. Bahen said the final instrument was expected within the next couple of weeks.
Providers must also notify TEQSA when they add a new offshore course or location. Those notifications will replace material change notifications for that type of TNE change, although other incidents affecting an offshore campus or joint program, such as a cyber incident, will continue to be reported through the normal material change process.
TEQSA is also finalising an updated TNE toolkit, which Bahen said was expected to be released over the next couple of months.
The recording of the TEQSA Talks webinar will be made available on the TEQSA website.
