Australia Test 13
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The Department of Education administers the Commonwealth's programs and policies related to higher education, vocational education and training, and schools, including the student financial assistance programs that enable Australians to access tertiary education and training without immediate financial barriers. The Higher Education Loan Program, commonly known as HELP, encompasses the primary income-contingent loan schemes through which Commonwealth-supported and fee-paying domestic students in accredited higher education providers can defer the cost of their tuition fees, repaying through the taxation system once their income exceeds a specified threshold. The income-contingent nature of HELP loans means that repayments are automatically collected by the Australian Taxation Office at a rate determined by the borrower's taxable income, with no repayment required in years when income falls below the minimum threshold, providing a social safety net that protects graduates in periods of low income or unemployment. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, known as TEQSA, is the national regulator of the higher education sector, responsible for registering and regulating higher education providers and ensuring that they meet the Threshold Standards which specify the minimum requirements for governance, academic quality, information standards, and physical and electronic infrastructure. TEQSA's regulatory approach applies a risk-based framework that calibrates the intensity of regulatory scrutiny to the assessed risk profile of each provider, with higher risk providers subject to more frequent and intensive assessment and lower risk providers given greater regulatory autonomy within the requirements of the standards. Schools funding policy involves negotiating bilateral arrangements with state and territory governments that determine the distribution of Commonwealth schools funding to both government and non-government schools, applying the Schooling Resource Standard as the benchmark for assessing the adequacy of funding for each school.