The National Protocols for Higher Education Approval Processes (National Protocols) were the subject of an extensive national debate during 2004 and 2005 that included the review by Professor Gus Guthrie, the release of Building University Diversity, the Commonwealth’s issues paper, a national workshop and written submissions. The outcomes of this consultation process informed the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Higher Education (JCHE) for changes to the National Protocols, which were considered by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs in November 2005.
MCEETYA agreed to a framework for a new set of National Protocols that includes:
clarifying the requirements for new universities in terms of the breadth and depth of teaching and research during the first five years of establishment
providing for non-self-accrediting institutions with an appropriate track record in registration, accreditation and quality assurance to become self-accrediting
applying the revised National Protocols to all higher education providers, including existing institutions using the standard quality assurance processes in place at the time
developing clearer and more consistent processes for handling overseas institutions seeking to operate in Australia
making national consistency in the application of the protocols a priority.
MCEETYA also asked the JCHE to undertake further work on various aspects of this framework and to develop a new set of National Protocols for consideration by MCEETYA in 2006. The JCHE was keen to ensure that there was an opportunity to receive feedback directly from those interested and to this end sought written comments on a draft of the revised National Protocols that was developed by Dr Sue Johnston of PhillipsKPA. Given that MCEETYA had adopted the framework described above, input was sought on whether the drafting fully captured the intent of the new framework and whether there were unintended consequences or other implementation issues that should be considered.
