With travel restrictions lifted and overseas students able to travel to Australia for study, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) has announced that universities are expected to return to full compliance with the Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Framework by 30 June 2023. 

Under the ESOS Framework, universities must ensure that all international students on an Australian student visa must: 

• not take more than one-third of the units within a course by online or distance learning 
• study at least one unit that is not by online or distance learning in each study period, with the exception of the last unit of their course. 

These requirements were waived during the COVID-19 pandemic which allowed impacted overseas students to continue their studies fully online. Many of our students have not had to consider these requirements before. Providing accurate advice about these requirements to our international students is important to ensure adherence with visa requirements. 

The University has developed a plan to ensure our unit offerings enable compliance with ESOS requirements and we will be contacting all international students in the coming weeks to ensure they have time to make necessary arrangements to arrive in Australia by 30 June 2023. 

We also have a plan in place to support training for frontline staff likely to encounter queries related to the return to ESOS compliance. Compliance also extends to Higher Degree Research (HDR). The Graduate Research Academy has also been working hard to ensure information and support for HDR students is in place. 

To support the return to compliance, it is important for all staff who work with students to provide correct advice and to ensure any relevant resources and webpages for which you are responsible are updated to align with the compliance requirements. 

More information on the return to compliance can be found on TEQSA’s FAQs page and our student FAQs page.