August 2024
TEQSA reminds all registered higher education providers and their governing bodies of the obligations they have under the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 to assure student and staff wellbeing and safety, freedom of speech and academic freedom. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is impacting many Australians, including students and staff within higher education institutions, and protest activities have escalated on some university campuses. It is important that all providers are prepared so they can manage and respond to these activities, and other student protests related to any cause or purpose, in ways that ensure they are meeting the Threshold Standards.
Key points
When responding to student protest activity, providers will consider the following parts of the Threshold Standards:
- Standard 2.3 encompasses organisational responsibilities for safeguarding and supporting the wellbeing and safety of students and staff.
- Standard 6.1.4 applies to the governing body taking steps to maintain an institutional environment where the wellbeing of students and staff is fostered, and freedom and speech and academic freedom are upheld and protected.
Providers
To manage and respond to the risks associated with student protest activity related to any cause or purpose, and to ensure providers continue meeting the Threshold Standards, TEQSA expects that providers will take the following measures:
Institutional policies and processes
In keeping with the requirements of the Threshold Standards, providers should clearly communicate institutional policies and procedures on topics such as academic support, freedom of speech and academic freedom, student and staff conduct, and misconduct. These policies and procedures should be up-to-date and applied consistently and fairly.
Information about student conduct policies, expectations and how to access support will be shared through communications to students and other communication channels. Policies and processes will be reviewed regularly to ensure their effectiveness, and any identified gaps in policies and procedures or legal frameworks will be addressed promptly.
Academic support and adjustment
Providers will give additional focus to identifying and supporting at-risk students. Currently, this includes those whose wellbeing has been significantly affected by the conflict in the Middle East or associated protest activity. Measures will include ensuring processes for academic adjustment are fit for the current circumstances and embedded with trauma-informed principles, and putting in place other academic supports to ensure students can continue their studies.
Ensuring a safe campus, including teaching and learning spaces
Providers will ensure materials that breach Australian law or conflict with institutional policies, including hate speech and symbols, are promptly removed from institutional property, including removal from both physical property and digital platforms.
Students and staff who have concerns for their safety and security on campus should be supported. Information on how to access the available supports should be shared routinely, and the effectiveness of supports regularly reviewed. The governing body of the provider will have appropriate oversight of concerns regarding student and staff safety.
Providers should have effective critical incident management structures and institutional security arrangements. This includes relationships with outside agencies, such as police, and proactive approaches to ensure any risks to student and staff safety are identified, shared and acted upon. As appropriate to the circumstances, efforts should be made to engage with student groups on campus to ensure any protest activities are respectful and in keeping with providers’ policies.
Particular attention will be paid to ensuring teaching and learning spaces are safe for all. While it has been a longstanding custom in some universities for students to announce details of protests at the start of classes, this has been problematic given the charged and often personalised nature of events related to the Middle East. Recent feedback to TEQSA indicates that people entering classrooms to voice positions on protests and on the conflict are engaging in behaviour that is disruptive and intimidating to many. Policies related to freedom and speech and academic freedom should be carefully considered in light of these concerns. Educating students about expectations for acceptable engagement and expression of views, as well as training and support for staff to respond to disruptions to learning environments both on-campus and online, will be important measures.
Ensuring complaint and support mechanisms are accessible
Providers will have a continued focus on ensuring students and staff are aware of complaint and support processes. TEQSA has received feedback that some students do not feel safe making specific complaints. Providers should ensure their complaint processes are trauma-informed and continue to highlight the ways staff and students can make complaints and access support. Measures for maintaining confidentiality during complaints processes should be considered.
Taking appropriate action in response to inappropriate conduct
Providers are expected to apply their institutional policies to students and staff whose conduct may be in breach of those policies – this includes behaviour as part of organised protest activity and language or conduct in learning settings that goes beyond what is acceptable in academic discussion. Providers will ensure institutional policies and procedures are fairly and consistently applied and any cases where action is taken are transparently reported in line with organisational policy.
Providers may take appropriate action to respond to people from outside the provider’s community, whose actions pose a risk to a provider’s property, digital environments, learning and teaching spaces or the safety and wellbeing of students or staff. TEQSA is aware that there can be complexity in legal provisions for dealing with occupation of an institution’s grounds and disbanding protests, and these can vary between providers. Providers should give ongoing consideration to managing building access, the use of student and staff ID cards, and making use of appropriate legal avenues to remove people that are not part of the provider’s community who are engaging in behaviour that poses a risk to the safety and wellbeing of students and staff.
Upholding freedom of speech and academic freedom
Providers will evaluate the effectiveness and operation of their policies relating to freedom of speech and academic freedom and make any required adjustments. Protest activity in the first half of 2024 presented a major test of changes to provider freedom of speech and academic freedom policies following the development of the French Model code in 2019.
Additionally, providers will actively consider how they work to assure their governing bodies that students and staff understand the content of the relevant policies and how they intersect with the law in relation to anti-discrimination and hate speech that may be applicable on-campus and online.
Good practice
TEQSA aims to develop a range of good practice resources and guidance to support providers in managing the ongoing risks associated with student protest activity and assure the wellbeing and safety of students and staff, as well as freedom of speech and academic freedom. Resources will be published on our website as they are developed.
TEQSA recognises that this is an evolving issue for higher education, and will continue to monitor and update our advice. As part of this work, we welcome feedback, including examples of good practice within the sector. You can provide feedback to us at: policyandresearch@teqsa.gov.au.