Announcement date
11 May 2023
Link to announcement
Next steps in ensuring the integrity and sustainability of the international education sector | Ministers' Media Centre
Problem being addressed
There are integrity and quality issues in the international education sector. These issues include the exploitation of overseas students, and the presence of actors who seek to subvert Australia’s migration and education systems to enable the entry of people into Australia for purposes other than study. This exploitation can range from providing poor quality education products, to high student fees, and false promises of pathways to permanent migration. Given the scope of the problem and the magnitude of the sector, a number of options have been considered, including policy changes that balance a regulatory burden against the overall size of the sector.
Proposal
The Impact Analysis (IA) explores three options to strengthen the integrity and quality of the international education sector:
- Option 1 - Status Quo
- Option 2 - Non-regulatory approach, involving consultation with the sector and voluntary data collection to understand issues with agents
- Option 3 - Regulatory approach, involving targeted legislative changes to the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (ESOS Act) through improving the regulatory capability of the ESOS agencies, improving data capture, improving transparency for Government, ESOS agencies and education providers to:
- amend the ‘fit and proper’ provider test under the ESOS Act to require ESOS agencies to consider cross-ownership of businesses between education providers and their agents to disrupt and deter collusive behaviour aimed to exploit students for profit.
- expand access for providers to all education agent performance data, not just to those agents they have an existing relationship with.
- require education providers to report through the Provider Registration and International Student Management System (PRISMS) information on agent commission fees they have paid to an education agent.
- pause the assessment of applications of registrations from new international education providers and of new courses from existing providers for a period of up to 12 months.
- require providers applying to deliver courses to overseas students to first deliver courses to domestic students for a period of 24 months.
- automatically cancel the registration of providers who have not delivered training to overseas students for a consecutive 12-month period.
- strengthen provisions to suspend the enrolment of new overseas students, including automatically where appropriate, by providers under serious regulatory investigation.
The IA identifies Option 3 - Regulatory approach as the preferred option with the highest net benefit and which directly addresses issues identified in the Review of the Migration System Final Report 2023, the Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia’s Visa System and the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Inquiry into Australia’s tourism and international education sector’s Quality and Integrity – the Quest for Sustainable Growth: Interim Report into International Education.
Assessed Impact Analysis outcome
Good practice
Assessment comments
The analysis in the IA is good quality overall. The IA addresses the seven IA questions and follows an appropriate policy development process commensurate with the significance of the problem and magnitude of the proposed intervention. In order to achieve an assessment of Exemplary, the IA would have had to further articulate the extent to which each option achieves the stated objectives, and conduct further analysis on the costs and benefits of Option 2, to enable a clearer comparison of the options.
Regulatory burden
The Department of Education estimates these measures will result in an increase in regulatory costs of $8.99 million per year, averaged over ten years.