Quality Assurance of Offshore Higher Education

The Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future reform package announced that from 2005, the Australian Government will commission the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) to conduct audits of the offshore provision of Australian higher education providers on a whole-of-country basis. This initiative, commencing in 2005, is underpinned by funding of $590,000 per year for three years.

The Minister for Education, Science and Training has also announced the provision of $1.5 million from the International Budget Package announced in 2003-04 for initiatives to support Australian higher education offshore. A one-off grant of $100,000 will be provided to the Australian Universities Quality Agency to enhance their current offshore auditing arrangements. Fifteen competitive grants of up to $100,000 each will be provided to higher education providers, or groups of higher education providers, to assist in the development of best practice models for offshore delivery. The outcomes of these projects may also contribute to the development of a framework for quality assurance of offshore delivery.

DEST has prepared a discussion paper on issues relating to offshore auditing. A reference group will be formed to analyse feedback received on the discussion paper, and to provide advice on how best to enhance offshore auditing. To access the offshore auditing discussion paper, and further information on the grants to higher education providers, see Quality Assurance of Offshore Higher Education.

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Any comments or queries should be sent to: highered@dest.gov.au
This page was last updated on Monday, 04 August 2008

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