18th Feb 2021, 12:59 PM – Senate Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Provider Category Standards and Other Measures) Bill 2020 - in Committee - Clarity about standards

The majority voted against an amendment introduced by NSW Senator Mehreen Faruqi (Greens), which means it failed.

Senator Faruqi explained the reasons for her amendment:

This amendment really seeks to ensure that the higher education regulator, TEQSA [Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency], take a variety of qualitative and quantitative factors into account when they set the benchmarks for research quality. It is also to provide clarity on what those factors are. TEQSA would need to specify the factors taken into account for different discipline areas and specify the benchmarks. This amendment would make sure that they do that, and that should include weightings that are given to each specific factor. By including these requirements in the primary legislation, we can have greater confidence that the standards against which the research in universities is judged are appropriate, that these standards are fair and especially that these standards are transparently developed, which the Senate can make sure of today.

Amendment text

(1) Schedule 1, item 15, page 7 (after line 15), after subsection 59A(4), insert:

(4A) A determination under subsection (4) must provide that, in having regard to the quality of the research undertaken by the entity or provider under subsection (1), TEQSA must:

(a) take into account a variety of qualitative and quantitative factors; and

(b) specify the factors taken into account for different discipline areas; and

(c) specify the benchmarks, including weightings, given to each specified factor.

(4B) Subsection (4A) does not limit subsection (4).