Prospective higher education providers update - January to March 2017

1.  Overview

Since the inception of TEQSA in January 2012, 130 organisations have submitted or indicated their intention to submit applications for initial registration to TEQSA.

Applicants for registration as higher education providers are subject to a two-stage process: preliminary assessment; and substantive assessment (subject to the requirements of section 19 of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 and prospective providers’ intent). Registration applications must include applications for accreditation of one or more course(s) of study, and are therefore assessed against all of the Standards in the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2011 or the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2015, depending on the date of submission. This differs from the reduced requirements for renewal of registration applications under TEQSA’s Core+ model of assessment.

2.  Prospective higher education providers

This report, drawn from data captured on 31 March 2017, provides summary statistics of the status of applications and prospective Higher Education Providers (HEPs), organised by:

• pre-submission prospective providers (pre-sub) - those who have indicated an intention to submit an application for registration but are yet to do so; and
• post-submission prospective providers (post-sub) - those who have submitted registration applications, the assessment of which has not yet been finalised.

It is intended that this report be published quarterly.

3.  Statistics of note

• While the total number of post subs has reduced due to the number of withdrawals and rejections of applications, there has been a growth of applicants under substantiative assessment from 20 in Q2 2016/17 to 28 in Q3 2016/17 (40% increase).
• There continue to be more new prospective providers indicating intent to submit an application to be registered as a HEP. However, the number decreased from 10 in Q2 and Q3 2016/17 to 7 in Q3 2016/17. The percentage of these new prospective providers that are a registered training organisation (RTO) remains consistent with 80% in Q2 2016/17 identifying as RTOs versus 71% (5 out of 7) in Q3 2016/17.
• The number of applications withdrawn by prospective providers increased from 1 in Q1 and Q2 2016/17 to 6 in Q3 2016/17. This figure includes those applications that had been submitted as part of the high number of prospective providers applying for registration during Q1 and Q2 2016/17.

4.  Quarter overview

The following statistics in the ‘Quarter overview’ represent the numbers of providers in each status/decision category during the relevant quarter. Note: these figures are not cumulative (e.g. From 1 January – March 2017 (Q3) 7 new providers were recorded with TEQSA).

5.  Prospective provider breakdown

The following statistics in the ‘Prospective provider breakdown’ represent the number of providers in each status/category as at the relevant quarter end date. Note: these figures are cumulative (e.g. as at 31 March 2017 (end Q3) a total of 57 prospective providers were recorded at pre-sub stage with TEQSA).

Overall these statistics provide an indication of some of the characteristics of entities that are intending to apply or have applied to TEQSA to be registered as Higher Education providers in the 2016/2017 financial year thus far.

5.1   Prospective providers assessment status

The following table represents the number of prospective providers that are pre-sub or post-sub in a particular quarter, it includes a breakdown of the current stage that each application is at within TEQSA’s assessment process.

5.2   Prospective providers that are RTOs[1] by State[2]

The following table represents the number of prospective providers in each category (pre-sub and post-sub) which are known to be registered as an RTO. These numbers are further broken down to indicate the location of each prospective provider by state (already registered as an RTO).

5.3   Prospective providers that are RTOs with current CRICOS registration

The following table represents the number of prospective providers in each category (pre-sub and post-sub) which are known to be registered as an RTO and also currently registered in accordance with the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (ESOS Act) to deliver courses to international students.

5.4 Most prevalent Broad FoE[4] course applications

The following table represents the type of courses, identified by Broad Field of Education (FoE), that are most common in the proposed/submitted course accreditation applications from prospective providers that accompany a proposed/submitted application for registration.