Higher Education Provider Updates March 2024

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Release of Accord Final Report

Following a 12-month review of the Australian higher education system undertaken by an independent expert panel, the Accord Final Report was received by the Australian Government on 28 December 2023. The Government released the Final Report on 25 February 2024.

The Final Report makes 29 findings and 47 recommendations, some of which relate to the Higher Education Loan program (HELP). Overall, it found that HELP has served Australia well by sustainably expanding university access to many more students. However, it needs to be modernised to make it fairer and simpler. The review findings with respect to HELP repayments and indexation include:

  • Changing the way repayments are calculated to make them fairer.
  • Changing the timing of indexation for HELP loans.
  • Setting the HELP indexation rate to the lower of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Wage Price Index (WPI) each year.
  • Student contributions to be in line with potential future earnings.

The Government is currently considering the Report’s recommendations and will respond in due course.

Further information on the Accord, including the Final Report, is available.

Student Support Policy and Provider Information Session

The Australian Universities Accord Interim Report, released on 19 July 2023, recommended the cessation of the operation of the 50 percent pass rate and increased reporting on student progress.

As a part of the Australian Government’s response, the requirement for a Support for Students Policy was legislated through the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA), with a phased approach to implementation.

On 1 January 2024, Phase 1 commenced:

  • HESA-listed providers must have, comply with, and be ready to report on a student support policy that deals with the support from a provider to a student to help them succeed in their studies.
  • The Provider’s student support policy must provide information on the process to identify students at risk of not successfully completing their studies, and the support available to help those students.
  • Provider’s that did not already have a student support policy in place, have time to develop and approve one during this phase.

Phase 2 will commence from 1 April 2024, in which the requirements under the Support for Students Policy will become more specific; these are set out in the Higher Education Provider Guidelines.

On Wednesday 27 March, the department will host a webinar on the 'Support for students policy' requirements which commence on 1 April. The 30-minute session will run from 3.30pm AEDT via GoTo Webinar.

Register for the Update on the support for students policy requirements event.

Phase 3 will focus on reporting requirements from 1 March 2025. A working group has been established to review data requirements, with the first meeting held in early April, and any findings will be shared with the sector to inform the first annual report required to be submitted by providers.

For any related questions, please email the HELP.Policy@education.gov.au inbox.

Update on 2022 Reconciliations

The Department has completed the 2022 reconciliations and advised providers of the outcomes in December 2023. As a result, the majority of the under paid providers were paid as part of the December 2023 pay run. Rather than invoicing and collecting any overpaid amounts from providers, the overpaid amounts were offset against the 2024 determinations as part of the March pay run.

Student Learning Entitlement Management System (SLEMS) Enhancements

The Student Learning Entitlement (SLE) Policy and Student Learning Entitlement Management System (SLEMS) is tracking students’ SLE consumption by USI. 

Provisional ASLE

A new value called Provisional Additional SLE (ASLE) was created to improve the accuracy of how ASLE is awarded to students enrolled in either a Commonwealth Supported postgraduate or graduate entry bachelor course.

Students in all postgraduate courses are first awarded Provisional ASLE, to allow Commonwealth supported place (CSP) units to be reported. Once a CSP unit is reported for one of these courses the Provisional ASLE will transfer to be Additional SLE, fully usable by the student. This methodology helps to ensure only Commonwealth supported postgraduate and graduate entry bachelors receive ASLE in line with legislation.

Vertical Double Degrees 

Work is continuing to ensure the accurate allocation of ASLE for students enrolled in vertical double degrees e.g. (Bachelor of Arts/ Master of Teaching). The creation of a lookup table where ASLE amounts for these courses can be derived from is currently being investigated. It is expected that no additional TCSI course reporting will be required, however some additional information outside of TCSI reporting may be sought from providers to ensure students receive the correct SLE entitlement.

New TCSI Real-time Validations (RTV’s) 

Two updates/additions to RTVs have been made relating to SLEMS: 

  1. A new RTV (RTV10923) has been added that will warn providers when a unit enrolment is reported that results in a student having 2 or less equivalent full-time student load (EFTSL) of SLE available.
  2. There are also fixes to errors preventing SLE amounts being recredited for units in some instances where the HELP Amount or Amount charged equals zero. These fixes include new RTV 10921 and RTV10922. Also included is an update to RTV10462 which will block an attempt to report the remission of a non-CSP unit with an amount charged of $0. 

Providers are able to view individual current students’ SLE information via the myHELPbalance website. Further updates will be provided at future quarterly working group webinars regarding capability to allow providers to view SLE information in bulk.

Although there is currently no API for SLE, there has been an abundance of feedback received from providers. This has been noted for future SLE enhancements.

For any providers that have questions regarding the SLE policy, please contact studentlearningentitlement@education.gov.au

April EFTSL Estimates 

Providers’ EFTSL Estimates templates for Commonwealth supported places are due to the department on 5 April 2024 via the FEP@education.gov.au inbox. Revised templates were issued on 22 March 2024 to relevant providers.

Round 2 Microcredentials Pilot in Higher Education (The Pilot)

Round 2 of the Microcredentials in the Higher Education Pilot (which opened on 15 December 2023) closed on 1 March 2024 to Table A, Table B and non-university higher education providers.

Applications will be assessed against the criteria specified on the website.

Round 2 of the Pilot is anticipated to fund up to 50 more microcredential courses, in addition to the 28 courses funded in Round 1 of the Pilot at 18 universities across Australia.

Further information on the Pilot.

Applications open for the Tertiary Access Payment (TAP)

The TAP is a one-off payment of up to $5,000 available to school-leavers from regional or remote areas to assist with the cost of relocating for tertiary education (Certificate IV and above).

Universities are encouraged to promote the TAP Program to students from regional and remote Australia who have relocated or are interested in relocating for tertiary study in 2024. For more information about eligibility and how to apply, students can visit the Services Australia website.

Indexation wording and student facing Information products

The Department has been working with other departments and agencies on information and communications about indexation of HELP debts. This was in response to last year’s HELP debt indexation rate, which was higher than in recent years, causing a spike in enquiries from students to this Department, the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the ATO and other agencies.

There was great engagement and response across agencies to ensure clear, transparent, and consistent messaging to students about indexation (irrespective of which agency a student interacts with). Further details are available through the slides that accompanied the working group webinar.

Administrative Information for Providers (AIP) update

The Department thanks providers for ongoing feedback on sections of the AIP that require updating following policy and legislative changes to HESA. A policy review has been undertaken and is in the final stages of approval. Further advice will be provided to the sector once the revised AIP is published.

Electronic Commonwealth Assistance Form (eCAF) Video and Quiz

The new eCAF video and quiz was released to the eCAF system on 1 March 2024 and published onto the Department’s YouTube channel.

All students applying for HELP using the new government eCAF must watch the video and undertake the quiz, it’s notable that there are unlimited attempts with no requirement to pass to access a loan.

The new video uses simple but direct language and contains new information on indexation messaging, census dates, HELP limits, myHELPbalance and myGov-related repayment messaging. The information about repayment percentages and thresholds do not reference any specific amounts to future proof the content.

StudyAssist Website redesign – project update

The overarching project deliverable is to design an improved user interface and refresh the visual design to facilitate greater engagement with the StudyAssist website content, ensure that it continues to best meet the information needs of prospective and current higher education students, and continues to serve as a valuable resource for providers. The Department is working with a creative agency on the redesign which has included stakeholder consultation, user research and user testing with prospective and current students. The Department has recently received the findings from phase 1 of the user research which is informing the creation of new content and changes to the navigation structure. The second round of user testing commences on 25 March to determine whether the proposed information architecture addresses earlier recommendations for improving user engagement and comprehension.

eCAF updates

From 1 March 2024, the academic suitability field is now a mandatory field for provider completion (students are restricted from editing this field). For providers that use a non-Government eCAF, your eCAFs must now also have an academic suitability field.

If there are any providers who are not certain if their eCAFs are currently compliant, please contact HEenquiries@education.gov.au so the Department can discuss and support you with any changes. It is crucial that all non-Government eCAF users have access to the Government eCAF training environment to be able to see current templates for the purposes of replicating.

The Department is continuing with its project to enhance the Government eCAF system to allow a student to complete an eCAF when their study is commencing in the subsequent year. Further information will be shared with providers as the project progresses.

Multi-Factor Authentication

The Australian Signals Directorate has developed prioritised mitigation strategies, in the form of Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents, to help organisations protect themselves against various cyber threats. The most effective of these mitigation strategies are called the Essential Eight. For the Department to work towards meeting the Essential Eight security requirements, multi-factor authentication (MFA) must be embedded into the Government eCAF production system before 1 July this year. This change is not going to affect API accounts or students – MFA will be for provider users only in production. At this stage, it will likely be released to the Government eCAF production system in May – date to be confirmed. Once MFA is released, the first time a provider logs into their user account they will be asked to setup MFA.

The Department is developing a short recording of a demonstration on the MFA changes, which will take users step by step through the process. We will share both with our eCAF Developers group (via normal channels) and also to working group members once available.

TCSI Update

A February newsletter and monthly webinar are available, which focused on privacy of student information.

The TCSI team will continue to publish a monthly newsletter in order to circulate information to providers more regularly.

The TCSI renewal project is underway and higher education providers will receive invitations to complete a survey to gather information on how providers use and experience TCSI, and nominate as a design contributor.

Student concordance functionality is expected in the test environment in March and in the production environment on 1 June 2024.

Please email the TCSIsupport@education.gov.au inbox if you have any TCSI related questions.