Independent review of your academic and corporate governance against the Standards Framework — before the regulator does it for you.
Governance is where many applications and re-registrations come unstuck. TEQSA expects a clear separation of academic and corporate governance, genuine independence, and evidence that your bodies actually function — not just that they exist on paper.
A clear, honest report on where your governance meets the Standards, where it doesn't, and a prioritised plan to close the gaps — written by people who know what TEQSA is looking for.
Academic governance is how a higher education provider makes, oversees and takes responsibility for decisions about the quality of its courses and the integrity of its academic standards. Under the Higher Education Standards Framework, TEQSA expects governance to be more than a diagram of committees: it must be independent, evidenced, and demonstrably effective. It is the single area where new and re-registering providers most often come unstuck.
Providers run two connected but distinct governance systems. Corporate governance — the board of directors — is accountable for the organisation as a whole: strategy, finance, risk and sustainability. Academic governance — led by an academic board or equivalent — is accountable for academic quality: course approval, learning outcomes, assessment, admissions standards, academic integrity and the student experience. TEQSA looks for a clear line between the two, with academic governance able to advise the corporate board without being overruled on academic matters.
A credible academic board has genuine independence, the right expertise, and real authority. That means external and independent members (not only management), members with current higher education and discipline expertise, a defined remit and delegations, a schedule of substantive business, and minutes that show it actually interrogates evidence rather than noting reports. TEQSA reads your minutes: a board that only receives and notes is a board that is not governing.
Assessors test whether governance is real by following the evidence: Are academic decisions made by people with the standing to make them? Does the academic board see and act on data about student outcomes, attrition, and academic integrity? Are conflicts of interest managed? Can the provider show that when a problem was found, governance responded? A provider that can produce this trail moves quickly; one that cannot spends months in requests for further information.
The recurring mistakes are structural, not clerical: an academic board that reports to management rather than advising the corporate board independently; membership dominated by executives; a remit that exists on paper but does not match the minutes; policies that are not implemented; and no evidence that governance has ever changed a decision. Each of these is fixable — but far more cheaply before submission than during assessment.
Darlo Higher Education provides independent academic governance reviews and hands-on support to build governance that stands up to scrutiny: assessing your academic and corporate governance against the Standards Framework, designing an academic board TEQSA will accept, drafting the remit, delegations and committee architecture, and building the evidence trail that shows your governance functions. Whether you are preparing for TEQSA registration, re-registration, or responding to a condition, we help you get governance right the first time. Talk to us for a no-obligation conversation.
A short conversation tells you where you stand and what it takes — no cost, no obligation.
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