The ESOS Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015 and ESOS (Registration Charges) Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2015 passed through both houses of the Australian parliament this month and are expected to gain royal assent by the end of the year.

“This single piece of regulation has required the company at times to retain up to A$100m of additional funding facilities than would otherwise be required”

Their passing, which follows 18 months of sector consultation, gives teeth to the ELICOS Standards which govern ELT providers by establishing an ESOS agency responsible for decision making around registration and compliance monitoring, with the power to take enforcement action if the standards are breached.

It also formalises quality assurance procedures and eases administrative reporting requirements, increasing the period within which institutions must report on changes to student enrolments from 14 to 31 days.

However, a recommendation by the opposition Labor party that the Senate “does not support provisions removing the requirement for a designated account” meant that the designated account provision failed to pass.

“There has been a lot of positive outcomes achieved from the amendments across the two bills, but it is unfortunate that the amendment related to removing the requirement for a designated account was not passed,” Universities Australia said in a statement.

The bills were expected to make significant changes to the way tuition payments are handled until a course starts, freeing up capital for institutions that recruit international students.

For example, Navitas, in its consultation submission, noted “this single piece of regulation has required the company at times to retain up to A$100m of additional funding facilities than would otherwise be required.”

The company described it as an “extremely burdensome financial and administrative requirement”.

And Phil Honeywood, executive director of the International Educational Association of Australia, told The PIE News that by forcing the government to now retain the designated account requirement, the opposition “does not appear to have achieved any substantive reform.

“Given that our national tuition protection scheme has prudently created a significant reserve fund, Australia is now very well placed to guarantee our international students’ tuition fee investments,” he said.

“On this basis, continuation of the requirement for education providers to retain separate designated bank accounts was seen as an unnecessary administrative burden,” he contended.

“By forcing the government to now retain the designated account requirement, the opposition does not appear to have achieved any substantive reform”

The last-minute change to the bill was nonetheless welcomed by Jeannie Rea, national president of the National Tertiary Education Union, who said passing the provision would have equated to “abandoning important student protections”.

However, institutions serving international students have argued that the designated requirement is not only unnecessary but a costly burden on providers.

During the second reading of the streamlining regulation bill, the then-Minister for Education and Training Christopher Pyne underlined the importance of international education to Australia’s economy, as the country’s largest non-resource export.

“The principle that underlies these reforms is that the quality of our education system does not depend on the amount of regulation we put in place but on the effectiveness and appropriateness of that regulation,” he added.

“These important changes to the legislative framework for international education will retain the high level of quality assurance for international education while reducing complexity and supporting the growth and competitiveness of the industry.”