Summary Statement to the Provider CategoSummary Statement to the Provider Category Standards

Summary Statement to the Provider Category Standards

Diversity in Australia’s higher education system, both within and between higher education providers, is important to meet diverse and changing student, employer and community expectations. The Provider Category Standards are designed to reflect and formalise key elements of this diversity, through the use of titles that are well-understood internationally and which are meaningful to the general public.

All providers of higher education that gain registration by TEQSA through meeting the Threshold Standards become ‘Higher Education Providers’. This category title signals to the public that the provider is a bona fide provider of quality higher education in Australia.

Higher education providers are able to seek approval within a particular provider category under subsection 18(1) of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011. There are several provider categories that use the word ‘university’:

• Australian University

• Australian University College

• Australian University of Specialisation

• Overseas University

• Overseas University of Specialisation.

A higher education provider must meet the additional criteria for use of a provider category that uses the word ‘university’.

If a higher education provider was, immediately before the commencement of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011, registered under State or Territory law relating to higher education, the higher education provider will automatically be taken to be a registered higher education provider for the purposes of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011.

In these Standards, unless the contrary intention appears, the terms and phrases used have the same meaning as in the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011.