Dr Carol Nicoll has been appointed Chief Commissioner of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). Dr Nicoll is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. She has held senior positions in the Commonwealth’s Education Department and was also the Australian Minister-Counsellor for Education, Science and Training in Europe.

 

In addition, four Commissioners  have been appointed to form TEQSA’s senior leadership team. They are:

  • Mr Michael Beaton-Wells (full time Commissioner), lawyer and currently the Executive Director of Finance and Planning at the University of Melbourne.
  • Ms Dorte Kristofferson (full time Commissioner), is a higher education quality assurance expert with audit experience in Australia and overseas.
  • Mr Ian Hawke (part time Commissioner), TEQSA’s Interim Chief Executive Officer and has overseen the establishment of TEQSA. He was previously Assistant Director-General (Tertiary and Non-State Education) for the Department of Education and Training in Queensland.
  • Mr Eric Mayne (part time Commissioner), former head of ASX Market Supervision and  Chair of the ASX Corporate Governance Council.

 

The new $70 million agency will be the national regulator and quality assurance agency for higher education. It brings together the regulatory functions previously undertaken by the states and territories and the quality assurance activities undertaken by the Australian Universities Quality Agency, reducing the number of higher education regulatory and quality assurance bodies from nine to one.

 

Dr Nicoll will take up her position in the coming weeks, relieving Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley who has led the establishment of TEQSA and the initial development of the agency’s approach to regulation and quality assurance.

 

TEQSA began its operations on 30 July 2011 and it will commence its regulatory functions on 30 January 2012.

Further information is at www.teqsa.gov.au.