Dual-Sector Governance in Australian Tertiary Education: Govern Once, Report Twice

As at June 2025, Australia had 57 dual-sector providers, 15 of them universities. Each delivers both vocational education and training (VET) and higher education, and each answers to two national regulators: the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). This working paper asks what a dual-sector provider needs to change in its own governance to meet both sets of obligations efficiently and credibly. It combines a qualitative analysis of public regulatory and policy documents issued between 2024 and 2026 with reflective practitioner inquiry drawn from the author’s experience in provider, regulator and advisory roles across both sectors. Drawing on responsive regulation and meta-regulation theory, the paper identifies five governance tensions: duplicated evidence, divergent quality logics, split academic oversight, workforce credentialing and international student compliance. In response, it proposes a ‘govern once, report twice’ model built on five design principles, anchored by a single obligations register, one self-assurance cycle and connected oversight through an Academic Board for higher education and a VET Quality and Compliance Committee, linked by a joint quality forum. The paper argues that regulator harmonisation, including the 2025 Dual Sector Regulatory Strategy and the 2026 ASQA-TEQSA memorandum of understanding, is a necessary but probably not sufficient condition for reducing provider burden, and that providers with integrated internal governance are likely to benefit most. The model’s risks and limits are discussed, and propositions are offered for empirical testing.