The regulator is not rushing two reviews of Murdoch U

The university’s five-year registration expired on July 18 and the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency is on to it, telling CMM, “‘TEQSA has received the provider’s application to renew its registration and assessment is underway.” Given the many months re-registration of the best-run university can take, the application might have long ago. As TEQSA advises, an “application must be submitted at least 180 days before registration is due to expire, unless a shorter time frame has been agreed to.” Not that it matters, as the agency explains; “As per Section 36 (3) of the TEQSA Act, the provider’s registration is taken to continue until TEQSA decides whether to renew the provider’s registration.”

The agency is also engaging at length with Murdoch U on another matter.

Following May 2019 allegations about international student standards at Murdoch U, on ABC TV’s Four Corners, TEQSA undertook a “compliance assessment.” The university responded to the agency in October. But nothing has been announced since then. In June TEQSA told CMM, “due to TEQSA’s wide-ranging response to support the higher education sector during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the compliance assessment is expected to be finished in the third quarter.

Which may, or may not be before news of TEQA’s registration application.