Branch campus partnerships risk veto under new Australian bill

Partnerships between Australian universities’ foreign branch campuses and institutions in host countries will be subject to oversight and possible veto by the foreign affairs minister, under a legislative amendment introduced into parliament.

But dual and joint degrees will remain beyond the reach of the Foreign Arrangements Scheme, which obliges universities to notify Canberra about deals with foreign entities.

The bill has been tabled amid heightened concern about security risks in university research – reflected in the government’s quashing of 13 grants over undisclosed national security issues – and strengthened regulation of offshore courses, which now require approval from the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa).

The government said the amendments would expand the Foreign Arrangements Scheme’s coverage to “evolving forms of international engagement” that had not been considered when the system originated in 2020, including foreign branch campuses.

However, dual or joint degrees with foreign universities will remain outside the scope of the scheme, which only covers courses leading to stand-alone Australian qualifications.

Mark Harrison, senior lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Tasmania, said the amendments were an “important step forward” in recognising the risks posed by universities’ offshore operations.

He said the “carve-out” of dual and joint programmes would effectively allow transnational education operations to continue in places like China, where the inclusion of political content and restrictions on academic freedom could be incompatible with Teqsa regulations.

Harrison said the tightened legislation would force Australian universities to pay more serious attention to overseas delivery arrangements that conflicted with their educational values. It could also force them to focus on dual degrees and avoid sole delivery of Australian qualifications.

However, he questioned whether this would suit China, which is pushing for foreign universities to provide their own qualifications entirely on Chinese soil “as part of a broader programme to integrate foreign universities into the Chinese system”.

The amendments also frame the scheme around “national interest” rather than “foreign relations”. Harrison said that although national interest was an “open-ended” concept, the change was still important because it would encourage universities and other agencies to think beyond the commercial returns from partnerships and consider “security and values”.

The Group of Eight said the shift to a “broader” national interest test was the “most consequential” of the amendments. Chief executive Vicki Thomson also welcomed “simplification” measures to reduce “unnecessary compliance processes” and “focus regulatory attention where risk is greatest”.

“However, this bill is more than a deregulatory exercise,” she said. “It represents a significant evolution in the framework governing Australia’s international engagement.”

The measures include more precise definitions of “institutional autonomy” – a crucial issue, because the scheme only applies to universities that enter partnerships with institutions that lack it.

The amendments allow assessments of institutional autonomy to be made on a countrywide basis, removing the need to examine the governing documents of every university. They also clarify that institutional autonomy is only in dispute if foreign governments are in a position to control the foreign partners’ governance, education or research – not “routine oversight” issues such as health and safety.

However, foreign universities will not be regarded as having institutional autonomy in practice if it is undermined by censorship or defamation settings, even if local laws appear to guarantee their autonomy.

The amendments also require universities to notify the minister of any existing partnerships with universities in Russia or Belarus. The current rules only require notification of new collaborations in these countries.

“The federal government has signalled to the sector that it’s been unhappy with the level of engagement with Russia, in the context of the Ukraine war and Australia’s sanctions against Russian entities,” Harrison said.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com