Bills Digest No.
33, 2022–23
PDF Version [369KB]
Matthew Keene
Social Policy Section
Paula Pyburne
Laws and Bills Digest Section
7 November 2022
Key points
The Bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to implement a range of measures including:
- Require students to provide their unique student identifiers (USIs) to their higher education provider and the Secretary as a prerequisite to receiving Commonwealth assistance under the HESA.
- Establish that enabling or pathway courses are not counted as part of the Student Learning Entitlement (SLE) under the HESA. The SLE is a lifetime limit on the amount of Commonwealth support a student may receive as part of a Commonwealth supported place (CSP).
- Make microcredential course students eligible for FEE-HELP.
- Abolish the discount of up to 10 per cent for students paying up front course fees.
- The Bill also amends the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 to make minor technical amendments.
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Contents
Purpose of the Bill
Background
Committee consideration
Policy position of non-government
parties/independents
Position of major interest groups
Financial implications
Statement of Compatibility with Human
Rights
Key issues and provisions
Concluding comments
Date introduced: 27
October 2022
House: House of
Representatives
Portfolio: Education
Commencement: Various
dates as set out in the Bills Digest
Links: The links to the Bill,
its Explanatory Memorandum and second reading speech can be found on the
Bill’s home page, 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 November 2022.
Purpose of
the Bill
The purpose of the Education
Legislation Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022 (the Bill) is to
amend the Higher
Education Support Act 2003 (the HESA) to implement the following
range of measures:
- Require
students to provide their unique student identifiers (USIs) to their higher
education provider and the Secretary as a prerequisite to receiving Commonwealth
assistance under the HESA. This amendment also allows for the standardisation
of student identification under a USI enabling the phasing out of the previous
identifier, the Commonwealth Higher Education Student Support Number. This will
also enable simplified data reporting and give effect to the 2019–20 Budget
commitment to extend the student identifier scheme to higher education (Part 1 of Schedule 1).[1]
- Establish
that enabling or pathway courses are not counted as part of the Student
Learning Entitlement (SLE) under the HESA. The SLE is a lifetime
limit on the amount of Commonwealth support a student may receive as part of a
Commonwealth supported place (CSP) (Part 2 of Schedule 1).
- Make
microcredential course students eligible for FEE-HELP (Part 3 of Schedule 1).
- Extend
the FEE-HELP loan fee exemption to 31 December 2022. This was a COVID-19 relief
measure designed to mitigate the impacts on students by reducing student loan
amounts and encouraging students to take up FEE-HELP study during the global
pandemic (Schedule 2).
- Require
New Zealand citizens occupying a Commonwealth supported place to be resident in
Australia during their studies to be eligible for HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP
(Schedule 3).
- Abolish
the discount of up to 10 per cent for students paying up front course fees
(Schedule 4).
The Bill also makes minor technical amendments to the Tertiary Education
Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 (TEQSA Act).
Commencement
The Bill comprises four Schedules which are subject to
differing commencement dates:
- Schedule
1 amends the HESA and the TEQSA Act. The amendments commence on
the day after Royal Assent.
- Schedule
2 contains amendments which commence on 1 January 2022.
- Schedule
3 amends the HESA. The amendments commence on 1 January 2023.
- Schedule
4 contains other amendments to the HESA. If the Act receives Royal
Assent before 31 December 2022, the amendments will commence on 1
January 2023. However, if the Act receives Royal Assent on, or after, 31
December 2022 then the amendments in Schedule 4 commence on the day after Royal
Assent.
Background
Student
identification
Currently there exist two ways in which higher education
students’ identification may be recorded: under a Unique Student Identifier (USI) or under a Commonwealth
Higher Education Student Support Number (CHESSN).
The amendments proposed by the Bill will support the use
of the USI as the single student identifier, which should give the government a
more accurate picture of the Australian higher education system student body by
virtue of having a fuller record and a single identifier type for monitoring
and reporting.
Enabling
courses
The Minister for Education, Jason Clare, delivered a
speech on 6 July 2022 to the attending Vice Chancellors and other senior
university staff at the Universities Australia 2022 Gala Dinner.[2]
This was the new Minister’s first opportunity to outline what would be his
approach to higher education. Minister Clare’s speech was peppered with
anecdotes and references to the power of education in transforming lives and,
in particular, the lives of disadvantaged peoples.
It is, therefore, not surprising that legislative changes
proposed by the Bill include supporting people to complete enabling
courses at higher education institutions. The measure ensures that those
who undertake enabling courses, which are pathways to further study, are not
penalised by having these courses count toward their lifetime study allowance
in a Commonwealth supported place (CSP). This then allows students to continue
on their path to obtaining qualifications without having the impediment of
paying up front fees for one or more enabling courses.
Disadvantaged groups face a range of barriers to
completing higher education qualifications. Data for Indigenous university
students show that completion rates lag well behind non-Indigenous students
coming in at 49.4 per cent and 72.2 per cent, respectively.[3]
Microcredentials
Previous
government
Microcredentials to address skills shortages was a policy
of the previous Government. This policy, a part of the broader Job-Ready Graduates Package
(JRG), aimed to provide support for short retraining courses as a means of
filling skills shortage in areas including teaching, health, science,
information technology and agriculture.
A National
Microcredentials Framework (NMF) was published in November 2021, which
describes how the microcredentials policy would work in practice. The NMF
defines a microcredential as follows:
A microcredential is a certification of assessed learning or
competency, with a minimum volume of learning of one hour and less than an [Australian
Qualifications Framework] AQF award qualification, that is additional,
alternate, complementary to or a component part of an AQF award qualification.[4]
As well as providing a definition for microcredentials the
NMF also establishes:
- agreement
on unifying principles for microcredentials
- critical
information requirements
- a
minimum standard for microcredentials that will sit on the Microcredentials
Marketplace.[5]
Current Government
The microcredentials amendment follows on from the
previous Government’s work by extending FEE-HELP eligibility
under the Act to microcredential courses. Previously, short courses provided by
higher education providers were not eligible for FEE-HELP.
This will further encourage higher education providers to
deliver microcredential short courses, which the Government intends will help
people retrain in another occupation to bolster occupations where there are labour
and skills shortages.
Skills shortages and workforce productivity were key
features at the Jobs
and Skills Summit, held at Parliament House 1–2 September 2022.[6]
From here the Government is in the process of developing its Employment White Paper
where it will consider input from external stakeholders and bring together its
own policy, including addressing the role of education and training in labour
force optimisation.
Related to this, the Government is in the process of
developing a Universities
Accord, which has been described by Tanya Plibersek (when she was Shadow Education
Minister) as follows:
The accord would be a partnership between universities and
staff, unions and business, students and parents, and, ideally, Labor and
Liberal, – that lays out what we expect from our universities.
…
The aim of an accord would be to build consensus on key
policy questions and national priorities in a sober, evidence-based way,
without so much of the political cut and thrust. Building that consensus should
help university reform stick.[7]
It is anticipated that, through this Accord, new higher
education policy will be forged, together with the sector’s representatives
including Universities Australia, the Group of Eight, and Regional Universities
Network.
Other
measures
One other measure included in the Bill is the removal of
the up to 10 per cent discount for CSP students paying course fees up front.[8]
This will create cost savings, estimated at around $140 million over the
forward estimates (2022–2023 to 2025–2026), and is intended to place all
students on the same footing regarding fee payment.
Committee
consideration
At its meeting of 27 October 2022, the Senate Standing
Committee for the Selection of Bills deferred consideration of the Bill to its
next meeting.[9]
Senate
Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills
At the time of writing this Bills Digest, the Senate
Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills had not made any comment on
the Bill.
Policy
position of non-government parties/independents
At the time of writing this Bills Digest no comments about
the content of the Bill by Members and Senators of non-government parties or
independents had been identified.
Position of
major interest groups
Fee help
for microcredential courses
The Bill would amend the HESA to enable government
loans through FEE-HELP to be applied to select microcredentials, eligible
through a microcredential pilot program.[10]
Universities Australia has previously called for the removal of financial
barriers impeding the uptake of short courses and microcredentials. In a
publication released prior to the Jobs and Skills Summit in September 2022,
Universities Australia called for the extension of FEE-HELP to ‘anyone
undertaking short courses and microcredentials in critical areas of skills
shortage’.[11]
Speaking at the Australian Financial Review Higher
Education Summit in August 2022, University of Queensland Chancellor, Peter
Varghese, said ‘… bringing short courses under some form of HECS arrangement is
very important’, explaining that ‘Giving people an opportunity at different
points in their career to come back for short periods – because they can’t
afford long periods, frankly – and renew their skills I think is hugely
important’.[12]
Concern over the purpose and quality of microcredentials
has previously been raised by the National Tertiary Education Union, which, in
its submission
to the 2019 Australian
Qualifications Framework (AQF) Review (which considered extending the AQF
to cover microcredentials), commented that:
… There are also questions as to the relative value of
microcredentials – if they are to be recognised for the purposes of credit for
prior learning, or as ‘stackable’ qualifications towards a recognised
qualification, then there may be an argument in favour of recognising micro
credentials so that the appropriate weight may be given in credentialing.
However, if the micro-qualifications are to be ‘stand‑alone’ offerings,
the Union has serious concerns as to their worth and their potential to be
misused.[13]
A more pointed criticism likens microcredentials to an
unfavourable economic condition:
…micro-credentials are gig credentials for the gig economy…They
accelerate the transfer of the costs of employment preparation, induction, and
progression from governments and employers to individuals. [14]
The Independent
Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA) outlines another limitation
with microcredentials in that they are limited to those courses provided by
universities rather than also including Registered Training
Organisations (RTOs). This removes a large part of the training workforce
that could deliver microcredentials.
Discount
for upfront payment
There has also been some support from student bodies in
relation to the removal of the 10 per cent HECS-HELP discount. In response
to the October 2022–23 Budget, University of Sydney Student Council President,
Lisa Perkins, agreed with the removal of the discount, while calling for
changes to Youth Allowance, saying ‘That discount mostly impacts students who
come from really wealthy backgrounds, so I completely see why they would take
that money away and put it towards helping disadvantaged students’.[15]
Financial
implications
According to the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill:
The Bill is expected to lead to revenue gain.
The FEE-HELP loan fee exemption extension is estimated to
have a cost of $81.3 million in fiscal balance terms over the period 2021-22 to
2025-26 and an underlying cash impact of $0.6 million over the same period.
The FEE-HELP component of the microcredentials measure is
estimated to have a cost of $5.2 million in fiscal balance terms over the
period 2021-22 to 2025-26 and an underlying cash impact of $0.0 million over
the same period.
The cessation of the HECS-HELP discount measure is estimated
to provide a saving of $138.1 million in fiscal balance terms over the period
2022-23 to 2025-26 and an underlying positive cash impact of $144.1 million
over the same period.
Other measures will not have a financial impact.[16]
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 Bill’s
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 Bill is compatible.[17]
Parliamentary
Joint Committee on Human Rights
At the time of writing this Bills Digest the Parliamentary
Joint Committee on Human Rights had not commented on the Bill.
Key issues
and provisions
Student
identification
Item 3 of Part 1 in Schedule 1 to the Bill inserts proposed
subsections 36-10(2C) and 36-10(2D) into the HESA to impose the new student
identifier requirements. Under proposed subsection 36-10(2C)
a person will meet the student identifier requirements provided that, before
the census date, the person has a student identifier and has notified an
appropriate officer of the higher education provider and the Secretary of that
identifier. Proposed subsection 36-10(2D) allows for the relevant
notification to be given as part of the process of requesting Commonwealth
assistance in relation to a unit or a course of study. Item 1 amends
paragraph 36-10(1)(f) so that a higher education provider must not advise a
person that he, or she, is a Commonwealth supported student in relation to a
unit of study unless the person meets the student identifier requirements.
Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Bill makes near equivalent
changes as follows:
- items
4 and 5 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Bill amend section 104-1 of the HESA
so that a person will not be entitled to FEE-HELP assistance if they do not
meet the student identifier requirements
- items
6 and 7 amend section 118-1 and insert proposed section 118-12 of
the HESA (respectively) so that a person will not be entitled to OS-HELP
assistance unless they meet the student identifier requirements
- items
8 and 9 amend section 126-1 and insert proposed section 126-10 of
the HESA (respectively) so that a person will not be entitled to SA-HELP
assistance unless they meet the student identifier requirements.
Enabling
courses
Section 70-1 of the HESA summarises Part 3-1 of the
HESA, which deals with the Student Learning Entitlement. It explains
that a person may be entitled to HECS-HELP assistance for a unit of study for
which the person is a Commonwealth supported student if, among other things,
the unit is covered by the person’s Student Learning Entitlement.
A person will start with an SLE amount that is equivalent
to seven years of full-time study. However, the person’s SLE amount may be
added to for the purposes of certain courses of study or in certain
circumstances. A person’s SLE amount is reduced as the person undertakes units
of study as a Commonwealth supported student.
Item 11 of Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the Bill amends
section 70-1 of the HESA to reflect the amendment made by item 12
to section 76-1 (which provides for the reduction of a person’s SLE amount) so
that a unit of study undertaken as part of an enabling course does not reduce
the person’s SLE amount.
Microcredential
courses
Key provisions
Item 16 of Part 3 of Schedule 1 to the Bill inserts
the definition of microcredential course into the dictionary in Schedule 1 of
the HESA. The term microcredential course means a course
of instruction that consists of one or more units of study and meets the
requirements specified in the FEE-HELP Guidelines. Item 14 inserts proposed
subparagraph 104-10(1)(b)(ia) into the HESA so that domestic
students undertaking a unit of study that forms part of a microcredential
course are eligible for FEE-HELP.
Discount
for upfront payments
The amendments in Schedule 4 to the Bill amend the HESA
to remove the 10 per cent discount on up-front payments. It does this in two
ways.
First, under existing section 36-50 of the HESA a
higher education provider must not accept up‑front payments in relation
to a unit of study totalling more than 90 per cent of the person’s student
contribution amount for that unit if the student is entitled to HECS-HELP
assistance for the unit. Item 4 of Schedule 4 to the Bill repeals this
section so that a higher education provider ‘must be able to accept up-front
payments totalling 100 per cent of the person’s student contribution amount for
a unit of study’.[18]
Second, items 7 and 8 amend section 93-15 which
deals with upfront payments. In particular, subsection 93-15(3) is repealed. According
to the Explanatory Memorandum, ‘this subsection is removed as, due to the removal
of the up-front discount, payments made in relation to a unit of study should
be an up-front payment even where the sum of the payment or other payments
exceeds 90 per cent of the student contribution amount’.[19]
Concluding
comments
The key issue arising from the amendments in the Bill is
whether fee assistance to those persons undertaking microcredential courses
will solve—or go some way towards solving—the problem of skills shortages.
It is unclear what types of qualifications are being proposed.
Indeed, in some respects a microcredential course does not exist by that name.
There are courses shorter in nature and more about the ‘how’ rather than the
‘why’, but the linkage of such courses to major qualifications, such as
teaching and nursing where there exist staff shortages, is unclear.
The Government is in the process of developing its
Employment White Paper in which it will respond to/incorporate input from
external stakeholders and bring together its own policy development to address
the role of education and training in labour force optimisation.
[1]. Australian
Government, ‘Part
2: Expense Measures’, Budget Measures: Budget Paper No. 2: 2019–20,
70.
[2]. Jason
Clare (Minister for Education), Reset,
Rebuild, Reform, address to the Universities Australia 2022 Gala Dinner,
Parliament House, media release, 6 July 2022.
[3]. Department
of Education, Completion Rates of Higher Education Students – Cohort
Analysis, 2005–2020, cited in Universities Australia, Indigenous
Strategy Annual Report, May 2022, 17.
[4]. Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE), National Microcredentials Framework,
(Canberra: DESE, November 2021), 9.
[5]. National Microcredentials Framework,
2.
[6]. ‘Jobs and
Skills Summit’, Treasury.
[7]. Tanya Plibersek (Shadow Minister for Education), ‘Speech
to the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Conference, Sydney’,
media release, 16 August 2021.
[8]. Explanatory
Memorandum, 4.
[9]. Senate Standing Committee for the Selection of Bills, Report, 6, 27 October 2022.
[10]. Explanatory
Memorandum, 15.
[11]. Universities
Australia, Skilling
Australia for the Future, (Canberra: Universities Australia,
2022), 2.
[12]. Peter
Varghese cited in Tom Burton, ‘HECS-style
loans “could fund quick study”’, Australian Financial Review, 31
August 2022, 13.
[13]. National
Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), Submission
to Department of Education, Australian Qualifications Framework Review,
n.d., [p. 4].
[14]. Leesa
Wheelahan and Gavin Moodie, ‘Gig
Qualifications for the Gig Economy: Micro-credentials and the “Hungry Mile”’,
Higher Education 83, (2022): 1279–1295.
[15]. Lisa
Perkins cited in Ellie Dudley, ‘Welfare
key for campus critics’, The Australian, 27 October 2022, 7.
[16]. Explanatory Memorandum, 3–4.
[17]. The
Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights can be found on pages 5–7 of the Explanatory
Memorandum to the Bill.
[18]. Explanatory Memorandum, 23.
[19]. Explanatory Memorandum, 24.
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