Bills Digest No. 29,
2017–18
PDF version [681KB]
Dr Hazel Ferguson
Social Policy Section
6
September 2017
Contents
Purpose of the Bills
Background
The ESOS legislative framework
The Tuition Protection Service
The TPS levy
International student enrolment
growth
Figure 1: international student
enrolments to June 2017
Provider closures
Table 1: provider closures and
resulting financial impact on the OSTF (2012–13 to 2015–16)
The OSTF account balance
Committee consideration
Senate Standing Committee for the
Scrutiny of Bills
Policy position of non-government
parties/independents
Position of major interest groups
Financial implications
Statement of Compatibility with Human
Rights
Parliamentary Joint Committee on
Human Rights
Key issues and provisions
Education Services for Overseas
Students (TPS Levies) Amendment Bill 2017
Administrative and base fee
calculations moved from the ESOS (TPS Levies) Act 2012 to legislative
instrument
Ministerial powers
Other provisions
Education Services for Overseas
Students Amendment Bill 2017
Concluding comments
Date introduced: 10
August 2017
House: House of
Representatives
Portfolio: Education
and Training
Commencement: The Education
Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment Act 2017 commences
the day after the Act receives Royal Assent. Schedule 1 of the Education
Services for Overseas Students Amendment Act 2017 will commence on the
same day as the Education Services for Overseas (TPS Levies) Amendment
Act 2017. However, the provisions do not commence at all if that Act
does not commence. Other parts of the Education Services for Overseas
Students Act 2017 commence on Royal Assent.
Links: The links to the
Bills, Explanatory Memorandum and second reading speeches can be found on the
Bill homepages for the Education
Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment Bill 2017 and Education
Services for Overseas Students Amendment Bill 2017, or through the Australian
Parliament website.
When Bills have been passed and have received Royal Assent,
they become Acts, which can be found at the Federal Register of Legislation
website.
All hyperlinks in this Bills Digest are correct as
at September 2017.
Purpose of the Bills
The Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies)
Amendment Bill 2017 (the TPS Levies Amendment Bill) proposes to amend the Education Services
for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Act 2012 (the TPS Levies Act)
to allow the Minister to determine, by legislative instrument, the Tuition
Protection Service (TPS) levy amounts currently set in the Act, with the aim of
providing the Minister with enough flexibility to address the current
over-funding of the Overseas Students Tuition Fund (OSTF) and any funding level
issues that may arise in the future.[1]
The Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment
Bill 2017 (the ESOS Amendment Bill) proposes minor technical and consequential
amendments to the Education
Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (the ESOS Act) to
reflect the changes proposed in the TPS Levies Amendment Bill.[2]
Background
The ESOS legislative framework
The ESOS Act and related legislation provides the
legal framework for the protection of international students coming to
Australia to study on a student visa. The primary components of the framework
are:
Other components of the framework regulate specific parts
of the system. For the TPS, the TPS Levies Act
sets out arrangements for calculating and charging the TPS levy.
The Tuition Protection Service
The TPS commenced operations on 1 July 2012, giving effect
to a key recommendation of the 2010 report
of the Baird Review of the ESOS Act, to simplify the existing
tuition protection framework in order to make it easier for students to
navigate available support in the event of provider closure.[3]
The service covers Australia’s entire international education sector and
assists international students studying in Australia if their provider is
unable to fully deliver their course of study.[4]
Under Part 5 of the ESOS Act, students of discontinued courses
either complete their studies in another course with their original provider,
move to complete a course with another provider, or receive a refund of the
unused portion of any pre-paid tuition fees.[5]
The TPS provides guidance for providers in the event of a
closure, including liaising with the TPS where appropriate to ‘ensure students
are looked after following a default in a timely way’.[6]
Where the provider cannot fulfil its obligations to the student directly, the
TPS acts as a single point of contact for students to manage the transfer or
refund process.
The TPS is governed by a statutorily appointed TPS
Director and an advisory board comprising a representative from each of the
Department of Education and Training, Department of Finance, Department of
Immigration and Border Protection, Australian Government Actuary, Australian
Prudential Regulation Authority and up to seven other members appointed by the
Minister on the basis of skills and experience.[7]
The primary functions of the TPS Director under the ESOS
Act are to:
- place
and/or provide refunds to international students in accordance with the ESOS
Act requirements
- report
to the Minister on the operations of the TPS and the Overseas Student Tuition
Fund (OSTF)
- manage
the TPS to ensure it meets its liabilities
- make
a TPS levy legislative instrument each year.[8]
The TPS Advisory Board is responsible for advising the TPS
Director on the annual TPS levy.[9]
Department of Education and Training TPS
Operations provides administrative and policy support, while the TPS
Administrator manages the TPS placement system.[10]
According to the 2014 Tuition
Protection Service post-implementation review by the Department of
Education and Training:
International students often pay large sums of money to study
in Australia. Offering tuition protection to international students is a part
of the high-quality experience Australia offers and differentiates Australia
from its competitors in a highly competitive global environment.[11]
International education providers across the sector have reported
that there are significant benefits from the system.[12]
However, since its introduction, some public providers have expressed concern
about the calculation of the levy which funds alternative courses and refunds
for students, arguing that their costs exceed their risk of default.
Universities Australia stated in its submission to the 2014 Review of the ESOS
Framework Discussion Paper that ‘high quality, low risk providers ... continue to
offset risk posed by other parts of the industry’.[13]
The TPS levy
Funding for the TPS placement system,
where the provider has not discharged its obligations and the student
needs to be placed at another provider or issued a tuition refund, is provided
by the industry through the TPS levy, which is charged as a condition of
registration on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and
Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS), the record of all Australian
education providers approved to offer courses to people studying in Australian
on student visas.[14]
Levy revenue is paid into the OSTF, which is a special account for the purposes
of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (the PGPA Act), and is established under section 52A of
the ESOS Act.[15]
Under section 5 of the TPS Levies Act, the amount
of the TPS levy for a registered provider is the sum of four components: the
administrative fee, base fee, risk rated premium and special tuition protection
fee for the year. Currently, the calculations for the administrative and base
fee components are set out in sections 6 and 7 of the TPS Levies Act:
- the
administrative fee component is the sum of $100 and $2 multiplied by the total
number of enrolments for the provider for the previous year
- the
base fee component is the sum of $200 and $5 multiplied by the total number of enrolments
for the provider for the previous year.[16]
In contrast, under sections 9 and 10 of the TPS Levies
Act, the risk rated premium and special tuition protection components of
the levy rely on a risk factor and specified percentage which the TPS Director
must set each year by legislative instrument.
Under section 12, the Minister may exempt classes of
providers from paying the base fee and/or risk rated premium component of the
levy. The Education
Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Act 2012 (Levy exemptions)
Determination 2012 (No. 1) specifies that Table A providers (Australian
public universities), government schools, and state or territory Vocational
Education and Training (VET) institutions are exempt from the risk-rated
premium component of the levy.[17]
Additionally, the specified percentage, which determines how much special
tuition protection component providers must pay, has been set at zero every
year since the TPS was introduced in 2012.[18]
Thus, the fees paid by all providers, the administrative and base fees, are
responsive to fluctuations in student numbers, whereas changes to, and
liability for, the risk rated premium and special tuition protection components
are based on the decisions of the Minister and the TPS Director in response to
provider risk factors and other relevant considerations.
International student enrolment growth
In June 2017, Australia’s total international student
enrolments reached 583,243, the highest level seen so far and a 13 per cent
increase on the same time in 2016—a continuation of the recovery seen following
the 2009–2013 downturn. Consistent with previous years, the majority of
enrolments are in Higher Education (49 per cent), with substantial
numbers in Vocational Education and Training (VET) (26 per cent) and English
Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) (16 per cent) and
smaller numbers in non‑award studies such as the foundation courses that
act as pathways into higher education (six per cent), and in schools (four per
cent).[19]
Figure 1: international student enrolments to June 2017
Source: Department of Education and Training, ‘International
student data 2017’, June 2017.
The proportion of enrolments with public providers varies
across sectors, but in higher education, where almost half of international
students are enrolled, only around seven per cent of all student load in 2015
(the most recent year of complete data) was at non-university higher education
providers and private universities.[20]
In contrast, overall VET enrolments are predominantly with private providers
(59 per cent in 2016) with only 18 per cent of VET enrolments at TAFE (the
remainder being split between university, school, community education and
enterprise providers).[21]
ELICOS enrolments (at 2016) are more evenly split between VET-based (31 per
cent), university-based (26 per cent), stand-alone (23 per cent) and
multisector (17 per cent).[22]
Provider closures
While enrolments have grown strongly, driving increases in
the administrative fee charges which all providers must pay, this has not been
coupled with parallel growth in provider closures or resulting calls on the
OSTF. As can be seen in Table 1 below, from its first year of operation in
2012–13 to 2015–16 (the most recent reporting year), the TPS has responded to
24 provider closures affecting 3,150 students. In 14 cases, the TPS was
required to provide active assistance to students with 476 calls on the OSTF
finalised at a total cost of $1,726,036.[23]
Table 1: provider closures and resulting financial impact
on the OSTF (2012–13 to 2015–16)
| Year |
Provider
closures |
Closures
requiring
TPS
assistance |
Students
displaced |
Number of
calls on
the OSTF
finalised(a) |
Cost of
calls on
the OSTF(a) |
OSTF
closing
balance |
| 2012–13 |
9 |
6 |
907 |
172 |
$358,005 |
$5,981,998 |
| 2013–14 |
1 |
1 |
161 |
94 |
$187,266 |
$11,989,408 |
| 2014–15 |
2 |
1 |
548 |
23 |
$121,288 |
$19,869,000 |
| 2015–16 |
12 |
6 |
1534 |
187 |
$1,059,477 |
$28,168,000 |
| Total |
24 |
14 |
3150 |
476 |
$1,726,036 |
- |
Source: Annual report 2012–13; Annual report 2013–14; Annual report 2014–15; Annual
report 2015–16.[24]
(a) Number of calls on the OSTF finalised and costs include
calls initiated in previous years. Future calls and costs may include students
whose provider closed in 2015–16. Previous costs are no indication of future
costs.
According to the TPS Annual Report
2015–16, its recent activities have been precipitated by regulatory
action by the national higher education and VET regulators—the disaggregated
figures provided for 2015–16 show the majority (nine) of closures in the most
recent year were VET providers, with regulatory action precipitating all but
one of these.[25]
The TPS Annual Report 2015–16 also states that the proportion of closures
requiring active TPS assistance and resulting in calls on the OSTF has been
falling due to improved closure processes and consultation.[26]
This experience is markedly different from the situation
in the sector when the TPS was being developed. According to the Department of
Education and Training, $27.5 million was charged to the precursor fund to the
TPS (the ESOS Assurance Fund) between 2008 and 2011, when following a period of
rapid enrolment growth, a high dollar, changed immigration settings, the global
financial crisis and attacks on Indian students led to a sudden decline in
student numbers that precipitated 54 provider closures, affecting 13,000
international students, of whom only 312 were assisted by their providers.[27]
The OSTF account balance
As indicated in Table 1 above, the OSTF balance has been
increasing since 2012, and reached a closing balance of just over $28 million
at 30 June 2016. As such, the fund risks exceeding the ‘target range of $30 to
$50 million recommended by the Australian Government Actuary and endorsed by
the TPS Advisory Board’.[28]
The OSTF account balance is driven by a complex range of
interacting factors, which, as the 2009–13 downturn demonstrated, can be
difficult to plan for over the longer term. Not only are fees driven largely by
variations in student numbers (through base and administrative fee charges),
but calls on the OSTF are shaped by choices students make about their
education, such as where to enrol (i.e. with higher-risk providers or not), the
size of closing providers and resulting number of students displaced, and the capacity
of closing providers to meet their obligations to students.
The TPS Levies Amendment Bill’s Explanatory Memorandum
states that the TPS Director has sought to reign in the fund’s growth, but due
to the split of the fee structure between the TPS Levies Act and the
yearly TPS levy instrument, the risk rated premium component has been the only
means to achieve this, raising concerns that any further reductions would
‘result in the loss of an effective price signal to higher risk providers’.[29]
Consequently, the Bills seek to establish a mechanism to moderate the balance
of the OSTF, in line with the fluctuations of both its funding and its costs.
Committee consideration
Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills
The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills
has considered the TPS Levies Amendment Bill and the ESOS Amendment Bill. It
had no comment on the ESOS Amendment Bill, but in relation to the TPS Levies
Amendment Bill it raised concerns about a ‘rate of tax’ being set by
legislative instrument and suggested it may be appropriate for the Bill to be
amended to further increase parliamentary oversight by:
- requiring the positive approval of
each House of the Parliament before a new determination under proposed
subsection 7A comes into effect; or
- providing that the determinations
do not come into effect until the relevant disallowance period has expired
(while retaining the usual procedures in subsection 42(2) of the Legislation Act 2003 so that any determinations are taken to be disallowed if a disallowance
motion remains unresolved at the end of the disallowance period).[30]
The Committee has sought the Minister’s response in
relation to this matter.
Policy position of non-government parties/independents
At the time of writing no non-government parties or
independents have commented specifically on the Bills.
Position of major interest groups
While at the time of writing there have not been any
sector responses directly to the Bills, the TPS Levies Amendment Bill responds to
long-running concerns raised by the universities about the proportionality of
the levy.
Extending Universities Australia’s claim (mentioned above)
that ‘high quality, low risk providers ... offset risk posed by other parts of
the industry’ the Group of Eight stated in a submission to the House
of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Employment inquiry into
the Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Bill 2012:
Considering their low risk status, universities
carry a heavy financial burden due to administrative charges linked to volume
of enrolments.[31]
The University of Sydney, in its submission to the Tuition
Protection Service post-implementation review, stated:
The TPS may have benefits in protecting students from private
providers who default in their obligations to students, however, as a higher
education provider, we do not consider the benefit to be commensurate with the
cost and burden attached to reporting/regulation.[32]
While the Bills do not necessarily reduce the fees charged
to public providers, the proposed changes would give the Minister scope to do
so for the first time.
Financial implications
The Explanatory Memorandum for the ESOS Amendment Bill
notes that the Bill will have no financial implications.[33]
The Explanatory Memorandum for the TPS Levies Amendment
Bill notes that the Bill will not have any direct impacts for the Commonwealth.
However, it states that ‘the legislative instrument that is created under the
amended Act may result in revenue gains or losses in future years depending on
the amounts for the administrative and base fee components of the levy set by
the Minister’.[34]
Statement of Compatibility
with Human Rights
As required under Part 3 of the Human Rights
(Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth), the Government has assessed the Bills’
compatibility with the human rights and freedoms recognised or declared in the
international instruments listed in section 3 of that Act. The Government
considers that the Bills are compatible.[35]
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights
considers that neither Bill raises human rights concerns.[36]
Key issues and provisions
Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies)
Amendment Bill 2017
Administrative and base
fee calculations moved from the ESOS (TPS Levies) Act 2012 to
legislative instrument
Item 5 proposes to replace sections 6 and 7 of the TPS
Levies Act, which currently set out the calculations for the administrative
and base fee components of the levy, with proposed sections 6 and 7
providing that dollar amounts determined in an instrument under proposed
section 7A and subject to indexation under section 8 will make up the
administrative and base fee charges.
Proposed section 7A sets out that before 1 January
2018 the Minister must determine, by legislative instrument, the administrative
and base fee amounts for that year. The proposed section also provides that the
Minister may make determinations for later years prior to 1 January each year—the
use of may in this part indicates that this is not a requirement. Proposed
subsection 7A(3) also provides upper limits for the amounts the Minister is
able to determine for paragraphs 6(a) or (b) or 7(a) or (b). These upper limits
match the current indexed amounts for the administrative and base fees.[37]
The Bill makes no changes to sections 9 and 10 of the TPS
Levies Act, which provide that the risk factor and specified percentage for
the risk rated premium and special tuition protection components of the levy
are set by the TPS Director by legislative instrument.
Item 6 proposes to repeal existing subsections 8(1)
and (2) and replace them with proposed subsections 8(1), (2) and (2A).
The existing subsections provide for the indexation of the administrative and
base fee components of the TPS levy, based on an indexation formula. The
proposed changes maintain the indexation formula, with some minor changes. As
currently, the administrative and base fee components will be indexed according
to the change in the Consumer Price Index over a year.[38]
Under current section 8, these amounts are indexed each year. Under proposed
subsection 8(1) indexation will apply to the amounts set out by the
Minister in the legislative instrument for each year that the instrument
applies, other than the first year. (That is, if the Minister makes a
legislative instrument by 31 December to apply to the following calendar year,
the amounts set out in that instrument will not be indexed in that first
calendar year.)
Currently, section 11 of the TPS Levies Act, which
sets out the rules for making a legislative instrument under section 9 or 10,
states ‘before the TPS Director makes (within the meaning of the Legislation
Act 2003) a legislative instrument under subsections 9(3) and 10(2), the
Treasurer must approve the legislative instrument in writing’. No further
guidance is provided on the basis for this approval. The content of section 11
is unchanged by the Bill.
The combined effect of proposed section 7A with
sections 9, 10 and 11 is to split the fee-setting powers for the four
components of the levy between:
- the
required yearly legislative instrument for the risk rated premium and special
tuition protection components, which is made by the TPS Director and approved
by the Treasurer and
- the
legislative instrument determining the administrative and base fee components,
which will be made by the relevant Minister (currently the Minister for
Education and Training).[39]
It is not clear if this split of
fee-setting powers between the Treasurer and the Minister for Education and
Training would create a need for additional coordination between these fee
components in order to manage stakeholder concerns and the OSTF balance
effectively, or if the TPS Advisory Board’s existing arrangements would be sufficient
to facilitate this.
Ministerial powers
The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of
Bills has asked the Minister to consider options for increasing Parliamentary
oversight given that the Bill proposes that calculations for fees currently
within the TPS Levies Act be determined by legislative instrument.[40]
As a disallowable instrument, the fee determinations will
be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny. The Bill also goes some way to limiting
Ministerial powers in proposed section 7A(3), (item 5) which sets
an upper limit on the amount the Minister can determine, limiting each
component to the current indexed amounts (as discussed above).
Additionally, while the fees currently within the TPS
Levies Act are not subject to ongoing consultation with the sector (and
have, when consultation is undertaken, raised objections from universities as
discussed above), under section 17 of the Legislation Act
2003 before a legislative instrument is made, the rule‑maker must
be satisfied that appropriate consultation has been undertaken where practical.
Consultation over the full breadth of fee components making up the levy would
conform to the strong stakeholder engagement approach reported by the TPS
Director in the TPS Annual Report 2015–16.[41]
Other provisions
Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment Bill
2017
The ESOS Amendment Bill proposes
minor technical and consequential amendments to the ESOS Act to reflect
the changes proposed in the TPS Levies Amendment Bill.
Items 1 and 2 clarify the wording of the Act by
changing the reference to the TPS Director ‘setting the amount’ of the TPS levy
to ‘working out the amount’ of the TPS levy. This acknowledges that the
Minister is responsible for setting elements of the levy, which the Director
must then take into account in working out the total TPS levy amount.
Item 3 is a consequential amendment following the
changes proposed through the TPS Levies Amendment Bill to clarify that the TPS
Director must determine the TPS levy amount in accordance with the TPS
Levies Act. The ESOS Act currently states that the TPS Director must
‘determine the amount [of the TPS levy] in accordance with the legislative
instrument made under subsections 9(3) and 10(2) of the Education
Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Act 2012 for that year’. The
Bill proposes that this be changed to require the TPS Director to determine the
amount in accordance with the Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS
Levies) Act 2012’.
Concluding comments
The TPS operates as a key component of the framework for
the protection of international students coming to Australia to study on a
student visa. The higher than anticipated growth rate of the OSTF presents a
challenge to its management and could exacerbate existing concerns from some
universities about the fees that make up the TPS levy, should it grow in excess
of what is required for its function.
The proposal in the TPS Levies Amendment Bill, to replace
the fee calculations in the TPS Levies Act with a legislative instrument
to be made by the Minister, would provide a more flexible mechanism to moderate
funding available to the OSTF, and provide the TPS with the capacity to consult
more comprehensively over fees and (if appropriate) address concerns raised by
some universities that their fee responsibilities are out of proportion with
their risk of default.
However, in light of the role of the Treasurer in
approving the legislative instrument made each year by the TPS Director for the
risk-rated premium and special tuition protection components of the levy, it is
not clear if existing arrangements provide sufficient coordination between the
two rule-makers for the responsiveness of the proposed arrangements to be
realised.
[1]. Explanatory
Memorandum, Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment
Bill 2017, p. 2.
[2]. Explanatory
Memorandum, Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment Bill 2017, p.
2.
[3]. B
Baird, Stronger, simpler, smarter
ESOS: supporting international students: review of the Education Services for
Overseas Students (ESOS) Act 2000: final report, (the Baird Review), Australian
Government, Canberra, February 2010.
[4]. This
is distinct from the tuition assurance scheme which operates for domestic
students, administered (depending on the provider) by TAFE Directors Australia
or Australian Council for Private Education and Training.
[5]. ESOS Act.
[6]. Tuition
Protection Service (TPS), ‘TPS
overview for education providers’, TPS website.
[7]. ESOS Act,
Part 5A.
[8]. Section
54B of the ESOS Act. See also Department of Education and Training (DET), Tuition
Protection Service: post-implementation review, (report
prepared for the Office of Best Practice Regulation within the Department of
Prime Minister and Cabinet), DET, Canberra, December 2014,
p. 29.
[9]. Section
55B of the ESOS Act.
[10]. TPS,
‘TPS
governance’, TPS website.
[11]. DET,
Tuition
Protection Service: post-implementation review, op. cit., p. 8.
[12]. Ibid.,
p.
19.
[13]. Universities
Australia (UA), Universities
Australia response to the review of the ESOS framework discussion paper,
UA, Canberra, October 2014, p. 9.
[14]. Sections
50A and 53C of the ESOS
Act; DET, ‘Fees
and charges’, DET website.
[15]. Australian
National Audit Office (ANAO), Agency
management of special accounts, Audit report, 24, 2003–04, ANAO,
Barton, ACT, 2004. The Department of Finance (DoF), ‘Special
appropriations: special accounts’, DoF website, 30 August 2017, provides
the following definition: ‘A special account is a limited special appropriation
that notionally sets aside an amount that can be expended for listed purposes.
The amount of appropriation that may be drawn from the CRF [Consolidated
Revenue Fund] by means of a special account is limited to the balance of each
special account at any given time’.
[16]. These
figures reflect the administrative fee and base fee components when the TPS
Levies Act commenced. The amounts have been indexed annually under section
8 of the TPS Levies Act. The current indexed amounts are $107 and $2.15
per student for the administrative fee component and $215 and $5.38 per student
for the base fee component: Explanatory
Memorandum, Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment
Bill 2017, p. 3.
[17]. Education Services for
Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Act 2012 (Levy exemptions) Determination 2012
(No. 1), clause 5.
[18]. Education Services for
Overseas Students (TPS Levies) (Risk Rated Premium and Special Tuition
Protection Components) Instrument 2016; Education Services for
Overseas Students (TPS Levies—Risk Rated Premium and Special Tuition Protection
Components) Instrument 2015; Education Services for
Overseas Students (TPS Levies) (Risk Rated Premium and Special Tuition
Protection Components) Determination 2014; Education Services for
Overseas Students (TPS Levies) (Risk Rated Premium and Special Tuition
Protection Components) Determination 2013; Education Services for
Overseas Students (TPS Levies) (Risk Rated Premium and Special Tuition
Protection Components) Determination 2012.
[19]. DET,
‘International
student data 2017: 2017 pivot tables’, DET website, June 2017. This figure
exceeds headcount because each time an individual enrols (for example, moving
from a non-award to a higher education course) they are counted as an
additional enrolment. Figures do not include those not on student visas (for
example, ELICOS students on tourist visas or New Zealand students).
[20]. Of
1,002,378 full time equivalent higher education students, only 65,208 were
enrolled in private universities and non-university higher education providers,
equating to 6.5 per cent. See DET, ‘2015 all student load’, DET
website, 7 September 2016.
[21]. National Centre for Vocational
Education Research (NCVER), Australian
vocational education and training statistics: total VET students and courses
2016, NCVER, Adelaide, 2017, p. 13.
[22]. It
should be noted that ELICOS enrolments are substantially underestimated in the
international student data as, due to the shorter length of courses, students
can study on other visa types. English Australia, National
ELICOS market report 2016, English Australia,
Sydney,
June 2017, p. 10.
[23]. TPS,
Annual report 2012–13, Annual
report 2013–14, Annual report 2014–15 and Annual
report 2015–16, available via TPS, ‘Annual reports’, TPS
website.
[24]. Ibid.
[25]. TPS,
Annual report 2015–16, op. cit. Disaggregated
figures are not provided for previous years.
[26]. Ibid.
[27]. DET,
Tuition
Protection Service: post-implementation review, op. cit., p. 8.
[28]. Explanatory
Memorandum, Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment
Bill 2017, p. 2.
[29]. Ibid.,
p. 2.
[30]. Senate
Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, Scrutiny
digest, 9, 2017, Parliament of Australia, Canberra, 16 August 2017, pp
8–9.
[31]. Universities
Australia (UA), Universities
Australia response to the review of the ESOS Framework Discussion Paper,
UA, Canberra, October 2014, p. 9; Group of Eight, Submission to the House of Representatives
Standing Committee on Education and Employment, Inquiry into the Education
Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Bill 2012, October 2011, p. 2.
[32]. DET,
Tuition
Protection Service: post-implementation review, op. cit., p. 18.
[33]. Explanatory
Memorandum, Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment Bill 2017,
p. 3.
[34]. Explanatory
Memorandum, Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment
Bill 2017, p. 3.
[35]. The
Statements of Compatibility with Human Rights can be found at page 4 of the
Explanatory Memorandum to each Bill.
[36]. Parliamentary
Joint Committee on Human Rights, Scrutiny
report, 8, 2017, Canberra, 15 August 2017, p. 81.
[37]. Explanatory
Memorandum, Education Services for Overseas Students (TPS Levies) Amendment
Bill 2017, p. 3.
[38]. Item
1 proposes to move the definition of ‘indexation number’ currently in
section 8, into section 4 of the TPS Levies Act. No change is proposed
to the definition itself, however, some refinement of wording is proposed to
the calculation formula to clarify its meaning.
[39]. See:
Administrative
Arrangements Order, 1 September 2016.
[40]. Senate
Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, Scrutiny
digest, 9, 2017, The Senate, Canberra, 16 August 2017, pp. 8–9.
[41]. TPS,
Annual report 2015–16, op. cit., p. 206.
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