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The Australian higher education sector operates within a complex and multi-layered regulatory environment, encompassing Commonwealth, state, territory, and sector-specific frameworks. The sector comprises 215 registered providers under the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011, including 37 public universities and 5 private universities, ranging from small institutions to large universities with over 85,000 students.
A working group, co-chaired by the Department of Education (the department) and Universities Australia (UA) will identify opportunities to make government regulation and internal provider operations more efficient for higher education providers, while continuing to assure quality and confidence in the sector.
In line with the Government’s agenda to reduce regulatory burden and support productivity growth in our economy, the Working Group will identify tangible actions to de-clutter and improve the regulation of higher education providers.
Role of the Working Group
The Working Group will identify opportunities for government agencies and providers that are practical and quickly implementable, to streamline processes, avoid duplication, sequence reporting, and reduce regulatory burden, while continuing to assure quality and confidence in the sector. This work will support existing regulatory streamlining work such as the joint TEQSA-ASQA dual sector strategy.
The Working Group is to identify actions to improve government processes and higher education providers’ internal operations. This will include opportunities to streamline regulation and reduce unnecessary compliance burden to improve efficiency, free up resources for innovation, and enable higher education providers to focus on delivering higher value activities such as teaching and learning.
Actions for government may include opportunities to align requests for data from the sector and streamlining regulation across both the Commonwealth and state and territory levels. While the Working Group is not being asked to identify actions that would require legislative changes by the Commonwealth or States and Territories, should such changes be identified, they may be considered at a future Education Ministers Meeting.
Actions for higher education providers should include practical steps that can be applied to internal processes, drawing on a community of practice. These actions may include streamlining administrative workflows, identifying system limitations and inefficiencies, and implementing consistent, sector informed approaches that reduce administrative burden.
Membership
The Working Group will be co-chaired by representatives of the department and UA.
Membership will include regulatory bodies, unions, peak bodies, students and representatives from state and territory government departments:
- Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency
- Australian Skills Quality Authority
- Department of Employment and Workplace Relations
- Nominated State/Territory Departmental representative
- Australian Tertiary Education Commission
- Australian Research Council
- Group of Eight
- National Tertiary Education Union
- National Union of Students
- Independent Higher Education Australia
Work Program
The Working Group will meet at least monthly from March 2026 to end-2026, with co-chairs, or a nominated representative, to attend each meeting.
Phase one of the work will involve the co-chairs undertaking an information gathering exercise and holding preliminary meetings with stakeholders to generate a list of ideas for consideration by the Working Group.
Phase two of the work will involve meetings of the Working Group to further refine the list of actions and undertake further consultation as the Working Group considers necessary.