The Department of Education has released a factsheet this week detailing the criteria international students of transnational education programs will need to meet to be exempted from the National Planning Level.
When the Government announced that it would set a National Planning Level for new overseas student commencements for the higher education and vocational education and training sectors from 1 January 2025, it also announced that there would be some exemptions. One of those exemptions is certain transnational education students.
The criteria below must be met for a transnational higher education program to be exempt:
- The overseas component of study forms part of the delivery of a regulated Australian higher education award, and/or
- The overseas study program is co-delivered by the Australian provider, and the program is registered with the official in-country regulatory authority as an Australian twinning or joint program arrangement, where the student transfers to Australia to gain the Australian award (or vice versa), and
- No more than 60% of the Australian award’s course duration is to be completed in Australia, and
- The arrangement was in place prior to 1 July 2024, or, for arrangements established after 1 July 2024, has been assessed as eligible for the exemption by the department.
Of note, regarding point three above, the factsheet says “A program of successive Australian qualifications (e.g. Bachelors, Masters) may be treated as one program for the purposes of calculating the 60% maximum onshore component if both qualifications are delivered by the same Australian higher education provider and the provider has self-accrediting authority”.
Also of interest, the language surrounding this exemption has changed. The wording of the initial announcement was “students that are part of certain Australian transnational education arrangement/twinning arrangement”, this has now become “certain transnational education students” perhaps recognising how few real ‘twinning’ arrangements exist in Australia.
Credit transfer/articulation arrangements do not qualify for exemption.
The fact sheet is available on the Department of Education website here.
As previously announced, the other cohorts that are excluded from the National Planning Level are:
- Schools
- Students studying standalone ELICOS courses
- Higher degree by research students
- Non-award students, including short term exchange students
- All Australian Government sponsored scholars and visa holders
- Foreign government scholarship holders
- Other Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or Defence-sponsored students
- Students from the Pacific and Timor-Leste.
