The recommendations of the Higher Education Standards Panel on professional accreditation requirements in higher education were provided to Senator the Hon Simon Birmingham, Minister for Education and Training in December 2017.
The Government has accepted the Panel’s advice in principle. The department is seeking stakeholder views on the advice and its implementation. Please forward any comments to HigherEd@education.gov.au by 30 April 2018.
The Panel’s recommendations include:
Recommendation 1
The Panel recommends that the Government consider requiring professional accreditation bodies to only assess or raise matters that are profession-specific and not already assured by accreditation against the Higher Education Standards Framework under the TEQSA Act, whether that accreditation is undertaken by TEQSA or by a self-accrediting provider.
Recommendation 2
The Panel recommends that TEQSA’s expertise be leveraged to help build capacity within professional bodies to undertake professional accreditation in the most efficient manner through promotion of outcomes focused, risk-informed and context aware assessment policies and practices. Engagement with and participation in such capacity building activities should be incorporated into the code of practice proposed at recommendation 1.
Recommendation 3
The Panel also recommends that the Government task the Department of Education and Training to work with the Panel to convene a forum of relevant stakeholders to discuss the future of professional work with a view to identifying opportunities that may exist to develop a more streamlined model of professional accreditation that would be more relevant to the future of both the higher education sector and the professions.
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