What Are ASQA And TEQSA?

The Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) are Australia’s national tertiary education (post-school education) regulators. Through regulation, both ASQA and TEQSA maintain the standards for accredited tertiary qualifications and course providers in Australia:

For ASQA, these are the ‘Standards for Registered Trading Organisations (RTOs) 2015’ (these replaced the ‘Standards for NVR RTOs 2012)
For TEQSA, these are the ‘Higher Education Standards Framework 2015’ (these replaced the Higher Education Standards Framework 2011)

These standards are used to ensure nationally consistent training and assessment of the accredited tertiary qualifications.

ASQA

The Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) is the national regulatory body for the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. ASQA accredits, regulates and assures the quality of Australia’s VET courses and course providers.

TEQSA

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) is the national regulatory body for the Higher Education sector. TEQSA accredits, regulates and ensures the quality of Australia’s Higher Education courses and course providers.

Moving Forward

Australian tertiary education course providers are increasingly offering both VET and Higher Education courses. This raises a few questions:

Should ASQA and TEQSA regulate such course providers together?
Should ASQA and TEQSA merge into one holistic tertiary education regulatory body?
Should course providers be allowed to offer both VET and Higher Education courses?

Furthermore, regarding semantics, consider the names of ASQA and TEQSA. TEQSA is not responsible for the entire tertiary education sector, yet its name ‘Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency’ implies it should be. ASQA on the other hand, has the generic name ‘Australian Skills Quality Authority’, assuming nothing about the vocational education and training standards it deals with.

Useful Links

To read more about the Standards for Registered Trading Organisations (RTOs) 2015, click here.
To read more about the Higher Education Standards Framework 2015, click here.
To read more about Australian tertiary education, including VET and Higher Education, click here.
To read more about the Australian tertiary education qualifications, click here.

References

Australian Government, Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), “About ASQA“, retrieved 03/07/18
Australian Government, Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), “About RTOs“, retrieved 03/07/18
Australian Government, “Higher Education“, retrieved 03/07/18
Australian Government, Study in Australia, “Universities and Higher Education“, retrieved 03/07/18
Australian Government, Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), “What we do“, retrieved 03/07/18
Australian Government, “Vocational Education and Training“, retrieved 03/07/18