The Senate has referred the HE provider category standard bill to a committee

The Senate’s Selection of Bills committee wants to an inquiry, to focus on “implications” of the provider category standards bill on “universities maintaining their university status.”

The bill’s origins are in Peter Coaldrake’s review of HE provider category standards, which recommended universities must undertake “world standard research” in at least half the fields they teach if they want to keep the title, (CMM December 11 2019). The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency will do the assessing. Committee hearings are unlikely to be argumentative – there is not a university in the country that is going to complain they do not do and should not be expected to do, enough research to get a tick from TEQSA.

In any case, if TEQSA adopts Australian Research Council classifications, meeting “world standard” should not be too hard – it is the average category in the Excellence for Research in Australia report.

And won’t the secretariat of the Senate Committee on Education and Employment Legislation be pleased. After processing the marathon of content in sprint timing involved in the report on the new HE student funding legislation, staff were probably dreading the prospect of getting some sleep.