Clare pulls TEQSA and ARC from super agency ATEC

The federal government has clipped the wings of the powerful new super agency to oversee universities that it announced in the budget, deciding not to merge the university regulator and the government’s main research funding authority into the new body.

Universities have been told the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, which regulates higher education, and the Australian Research Council, which funds university research, will not be included in the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, the new statutory body that will administer higher education.

The new body was recommended by the Universities Accord review, which envisaged the inclusion of the TEQSA and the ARC.

The super body is planned to be the government’s independent tertiary education policy and decision-making arm, recommending funding and tuition fee levels, matching the availability of education to Australia’s skill needs and ensuring the nation develops a variety of tertiary institutions.

The decision to remove the regulator TEQSA from ATEC will resolve the potential conflicts of interest that arise if the body running higher education (ATEC) controls the body that regulated it (TEQSA).

However, following the government’s decision to put caps on the number of international students each university and other educational institutions can enrol, ATEC is likely to have the additional controversial role of deciding the number and composition of international students who will be allowed at each university.

This will be a major task, requiring it to take into account each university’s student housing capacity, which the government says will influence the international student cap.

Tuesday’s budget started the process of implementing the Universities Accord review, which aims to fulfil the government’s goal of having 80 per cent of working-age Australians holding a tertiary qualification by 2050.

Education Minister Jason Clare has set up a committee of tertiary education representatives to advise him on establishing ATEC and implementing some other accord recommendations.

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