TCSI January Newsletter 2026

TCSI Support encourages providers to review the 2026 reporting requirements applicable to their organisation.

With the beginning of the 2026 reporting year, providers are encouraged to review the reporting requirements to ensure they are meeting the requirements set out under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA) for Higher education providers, and the VET Student Loans Act 2016 for VET Student Loan providers. 

Timely accurate data submission is essential to ensure optimal support to your student cohort. Reviewing the applicable reporting requirements for your provider can help to reduce the number of unexpected data reporting errors, improve data quality, and ensure data is submitted on or before the reporting deadline, as advised in the individual data packets. 

Providers are reminded that late reporting may result in a breach of the HESA or VET Student Loans Act 2016 (whichever is applicable) and can affect provider payments. It is important that providers allocate enough time to prepare, validate and submit data before the applicable deadlines.

Providers are also reminded annual verification process forms a critical element of the reporting requirements under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA). It is a declaration that the data reported by your organisation is complete, accurate and finalised. 

The Department of Education uses the verified data to reconcile funding and to publish information on your organisation, including data, on course completions and success rates. 

The annual verification process gives you a final opportunity to check your data carefully, as changes cannot be made to annual datasets after verification is finalised.

Providers are expected to ensure their contact details are kept up to date.

The department communicates with providers regularly on various information related to TCSI reporting. It is important for all providers to maintain accurate and up-to-date TCSI contact information. 

To ensure TCSI has the correct contact for your organisation, all providers are advised to complete the ‘TCSI Provider Contact’ form, based upon the below TCSI criteria, if there is a change to your previous nomination.

TCSI Support requires an individual staff member to be nominated as the primary contact, with contact details including name, phone number and email address. If providers would like to nominate a group mailbox, please list it under the ‘group mailbox’ section of the contact form. The secondary contact can be either an individual staff member or a group mailbox.

HITS Contacts

The HELP Information Technology System (HITS) is utilised to manage information about approved providers, including contact information for staff members including Chief executive officers (CEOs). It is a requirement for approved providers to ensure their contact information is accurate and up to date in HITS. 

For any enquiries related to HITS:

• Higher education providers, please contact FEE-HELP@education.gov.au.
• VET Student Loan providers, please contact VETStudentLoans@dewr.gov.au.

TCSI Support would like to remind providers that staff access to PRODA attributes can be set for a maximum of 12 months from the date it is delegated or extended.

It is recommended that staff set regular reminders and check their PRODA access expiry dates to ensure they do not lose access to their organisation in PRODA or required TCSI Attributes.  

To extend access for a staff member at your organisation, a director or staff member with delegable roles will need to navigate to the Organisation Details screen in PRODA and: 

1. Click “Members”
2. Select the relevant staff member
3. Set a new "End Date" (maximum 12 months duration)
4. Click “Save”
5. Confirm by clicking "Update end date". 

To extend access to an individual staff member’s TCSI attributes, a director or staff member with delegable roles will need to navigate to the Organisation Details screen in PRODA and: 

1. Click “Members”
2. Select the relevant staff member
3. Scroll down and click “Attribute Delegations”
4. Click the relevant attribute
5. Set a new effective-to date (maximum 12 months duration)
6. Click “Save”. 

It is recommended that providers have more than one staff member with delegable roles. This will allow access to be extended without requiring the organisation's director. If all staff members lose their access, it can be recovered by the director registered in PRODA and the Australian Business Register. 

More information can be found in the TCSI Support PRODA guide. 

Protect personal information. A reminder to all providers to follow data privacy and security guidelines.

TCSI Support would like to remind providers that they need to continue to consider their own obligations and consider the 13 Australian Privacy Principles outlined under the Privacy Act 1988 when sending data via email to TCSI Support.  

TCSI Support issues and information requests 

Please ensure that the information does not breach the individual’s privacy and does not contain information such as: 

• TFN
• CHESSN
• Names
• Date of Birth
• Addresses
• ATSI Code

If student information needs to be communicated to the department, providers can send the following identifiers: 

• Student identification code (E313)
• Provider code (E306)

If TCSI Support requires sensitive data in relation to an enquiry, they will send follow up correspondence requesting the data to be uploaded using the department’s secure Web Transfer Client (FTP server).  

For additional information relating to Privacy for both students and providers, please see Privacy notice messaging for students. 

TCSI test data 

Reminder: Actual live or Production data should not be used in the test environment.  

Using production data in the test environment is a privacy data breach. Providers should consider their obligations and consider the 13 Australian Privacy Principles outlined under the Privacy Act 1988. 

Whilst actual live or production data should not be used for testing purposes, providers can consider using de-identified data, with the acknowledgement and confirmation of certain conditions. These are: 

• The provider is sufficiently satisfied that the data has been de-identified in such a way that it cannot be un-scrambled or re-identified
• In the event that this data is published or exposed externally, the provider maintains no concern to its privacy or security sensitivity. Essentially, the government will treat this data as unclassified material
• In the event that data is able to be un-scrambled or re-identified, the provider holds all responsibility for this and any associated implications. 

The department strongly advises providers to seek internal legal advice prior to exploring the usage of de-identified production data for testing in the TCSI test environment. 

For more information on using the TEST environment, including how to create mock TFNs, please see TCSI - Testing for providers. 

The first TCSI Drop-in session for 2026 will be on 28 January.

The TCSI Support team will resume optional monthly drop-in sessions from 28 January 2026, with the first TCSI Monthly webinar to be held on 25 February 2025. 

All scheduled 2026 monthly TCSI webinars are now available for registration on the TCSI News Centre webpage. These sessions are an excellent opportunity to get up-to-date information and to ask any questions you might have about TCSI. 

Registration links for TCSI webinars can be found below: 

We encourage all providers to register now for upcoming 2026 TCSI monthly webinars and listed drop-in sessions. Please also update your calendar and invite along any colleagues who may benefit from attending. You can register via the TCSI News Centre webpage. 

Recordings of previous monthly webinars can be found at the ‘Published Newsletters, Webinars and other media’ section of the News Centre webpage.