Declare offshore activities, Australian universities told

Australian universities have three months to divulge their overseas educational activities, as the higher education regulator assumes oversight of offshore delivery.

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa) has been given responsibility for monitoring Australian courses taught overseas, other than short exchange or research programmes, and for approving courses introduced from this year. The agency has now outlined its reporting requirements to meet the new obligations.

Universities and colleges must supply details about course names, levels, credentials, locations, dates and enrolments, together with specifics about business relationships with overseas partners. The information must be provided by the end of October via a template spreadsheet to be circulated this month.

These are preliminary arrangements to “capture core facts”, Teqsa warned in a consultation paper. “In later years [we] will refine the…requirements according to legislative changes and emerging risks.”

The new reporting obligations coincide with a proliferation of offshore ventures, as universities’ international tuition fee earnings come under threat from a federal government crackdown and declining demand for foreign qualifications in China.

Years of inertia around overseas branch campuses, widely seen as complex and financially risky endeavours, have ended after India and Indonesia eased restrictions on the operations of foreign universities. Six Australian institutions have joined early movers Deakin and Wollongong in opening campuses in the subcontinent, or planning to do so.

UNSW Sydney commenced classes in Bengaluru on 10 August and Victoria University’s campus in Gurugram, on New Delhi’s outskirts, is due to begin delivery on 24 August. The University of Western Australia (UWA) plans to start undergraduate courses at its Mumbai campus in September, with postgraduate offerings following in November at Mumbai and a second UWA campus at Chennai.

Western Sydney University (WSU) plans a campus at Greater Noida, also on New Delhi’s outskirts, while Flinders University is establishing itself in Bengaluru. Both campuses are expected to accept students from 2027. La Trobe University also intends to open a campus in Bengaluru but has not revealed a timeline.

The entry of research heavyweights UNSW and UWA, both Group of Eight (Go8) members, is considered particularly significant. Until now, Go8 institutions have mostly steered clear of international branch campuses – with the notable exception of Monash University, whose network of overseas bases includes a longstanding joint PhD programme with the Mumbai’s Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Monash also kickstarted interest in Indonesia when it opened the archipelago’s first foreign university branch campus in Tangerang, near Jakarta, in 2021. Deakin followed suit last year in nearby Bandung, partnering with Lancaster University and private international education chain Navitas, while WSU launched a campus in Indonesia’s second city of Surabaya.

Classes have also begun at Charles Sturt University’s joint campus in Sri Lanka, after Perth universities Edith Cowan and Curtin opened outposts on the island in 2023 and 2024.

As well as branch campuses, Australian universities have launched dozens of less ambitious offshore delivery ventures in conjunction with established overseas partners. Swinburne University, for instance, claimed bragging rights as the first institution to offer Australian degrees in Qatar when it inked a deal with Barzan University College in Doha.

But the rush to establish overseas outposts has come with several false starts. Charles Darwin University called off its audacious plan for a branch campus in London, while Central Queensland University’s ambition for bases on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi never eventuated.

The University of Wollongong’s plan to open the first foreign branch campus in the Saudi capital of Riyadh has also faltered. Wollongong had intended to start offering English-medium courses last year, with foundation programmes following this year and undergraduate courses next year. The university is still awaiting approval from the Saudi Ministry of Education and now hopes to open the campus in 2027. The sequencing of programmes will be confirmed “once the approval process has been finalised”, a spokesman said.

Plans for foreign campuses have also been plagued by doubts over their competitiveness and their compatibility with institutional autonomy and universities’ core mission to educate Australians. The question of how to make TNE work financially “keeps university leaders awake at night”, according to Charles Sun, managing director of Beijing-based consultancy China Education International.

But Sun said universities had little option amid the “uncomfortable” decline in interest from Chinese students. “Chinese families are not losing confidence in Australian education – they are simply asking harder questions about cost, value, certainty and employability,” he posted. “The decline is a signal to redesign partnerships, not abandon them.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com