TCSI September Newsletter 2023

All providers are invited to attend upcoming webinars and drop-in sessions, and we encourage you to register your attendance using the links below.

These sessions are an excellent opportunity to get up-to-date information and to ask any questions you might have about TCSI. 

Recordings of previous webinars can be found at the following locations:

• For Monthly provider webinars, please go to the Webinars page.
• For drop-in sessions, please go to the TCSI Support drop-in sessions page.

Staff data collections are due to be submitted and verified by 30 September 2023. The due date applies to all higher education providers including those approved under the Higher Education Support Act (HESA) and TEQSA PIR providers.

The TCSI Support team is hosting a dedicated Staff Data Reporting webinar on 6 September to demonstrate how to:

• read the reporting requirements
• prepare and upload files in the TCSI Data Entry portal
• check the response file and troubleshoot errors
• access and interpret TCSI Analytics reports
• verify and sign off your staff data.

The webinar is required viewing for anyone who is responsible for submitting Staff data in 2023. Please forward the webinar details to the relevant team(s) at your organisation so they can attend or access the recording before verifying the staff data collections.

Request for information

TCSI Support is gathering contact details for individuals or mailboxes responsible for staff data collection at each provider. This will help us to target our communications as we understand many existing TCSI contacts are more closely involved in student data reporting. The request also seeks a high level timeline for submitting and verifying your staff data.

Please provide your response to the request for information. Responses are due by 13 September 2023.

If you have any questions relating staff data submission or verification, please email us at TCSISupport@education.gov.au.

New reports are being developed to help providers understand the loan impact of certain missing or unverified information. The new reports will be available to view and download From TCSI Analytics from mid September 2023.

Following positive feedback received from higher education providers on the TCSI loan remediation data extracts, the Department has decided to make these regular data extracts available from the TCSI Analytics portal. 

The first report to be released will identify students who are missing a Tax File Number in TCSI and will identify the number, value and date range for those loans. TFN Verification will follow soon after.

There will be an opportunity for the Department to update the reports based on provider feedback. The new reports will be announced in a web alert, so please check your subscription preferences by following the link at the top of the News page.

Providers approved for the Microcredentials Pilot in Higher Education can now start reporting their microcredential courses to TCSI in production.

TCSI will allow approved providers to create the new microcredential courses via a new Course of Study code ‘52’. Reporting requirements for course admissions, unit enrolments and AOU packets follow the same pattern as for fee-paying non-overseas students and students accessing a FEE-HELP loan. That is, Student Status Code (E490) will be equal to '302' or '230'.

Caps on FEE-HELP student places will be applied at the provider level. This gives providers delivering more than one approved microcredential course flexibility to enrol to meet student demand.

Course data and student enrolment numbers for the microcredential need to be completed within 14 days after the census date/s. This will enable the Department to make course delivery payments to providers. 

TCSI Real-Time Validations (RTVs) that are specific to the conditions of the Pilot have been developed. They will assist with data input and can be found on the TCSI validations webpage.

The Department will be seeking provider assistance to engage students at the point of enrolment to complete a survey. These student surveys will help build greater understanding of the value of microcredentials and inform an evaluation of the Pilot in 2025-26.

The Australian Government has established Startup Year to support students’ participation in startup courses at Australian higher education providers.

This will encourage innovation and support Australia’s startup community, including social innovation and community-based entrepreneurship. More information on Startup Year can be found at the Startup Year page.

A new Course of Study Type (E310) ‘51’ for STARTUP-HELP courses approved under the Startup Year program is now available in the staging environment. Eligible providers can offer Startup Year courses, with EFTSL limits between 0.5 and 1.0. The appropriate Student Status code (E490) value allowed for approved Startup Year courses is ‘290’. STARTUP-HELP places are capped and will be allocated through an application process.

Providers will be able to manage student entitlement for STARTUP-HELP courses via the HELP balances API, they will also be able to view STARTUP-HELP balances via the TCSI Data Entry portal.

On 13 February 2023, the Government announced that Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) or Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (SHEV) holders will be able to apply for a permanent Resolution of Status (RoS) Visa.

Continuing or prospective students who have previously held temporary TPV or SHEV visas may become eligible for Commonwealth assistance once they are granted an RoS Visa, provided they meet all eligibility requirements under the Higher Education Support Act 2003.

Students in this circumstance will meet the citizenship and residency requirements to be eligible for Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP) and a Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) loan only once they are granted an RoS Visa. Providers should assess these students as they would other permanent humanitarian visa holders, ensuring that the student has submitted suitable evidence of their attainment of a RoS visa before the relevant census date.

Students who meet the above requirements should be reported in TCSI with a citizen resident code (E358) of '8 - Students/applicants with permanent humanitarian visa'.

Students will not be eligible for Commonwealth assistance whilst their application is being processed or are otherwise on a ‘pathway’ to a permanent visa.

More information on RoS visas is available on the Department of Home Affairs website: Subclass 851 Resolution of Status (homeaffairs.gov.au).