NEWS campusreview. com. au
TEQSA and the alternatives
Standards agency defends against claims it shouldn’ t accredit complementary medicine programs.
By Andrew Bracey
The acting chief commissioner of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency( TEQSA), Nick Saunders, has defended its accreditation of complementary and alternative medicine courses, following heavy criticism from senior medical academic figures.
The president of the Friends of Society in Medicine( FOS) and emeritus professor of medicine at the University of New South Wales, John Dwyer, recently argued that TEQSA dropped the ball by accrediting many alternative and complementary medicine programs from various providers because there is little science supporting them.
“[ TEQSA ] should de-accredit colleges teaching homeopathy and other pseudoscientific treatments as if they are credible health options for Australians,” Dwyer told Fairfax Media.
In a subsequent interview with Campus Review, Dwyer said he was“ waiting to hear what [ TEQSA ] would do about the request for upgrades of the degrees that colleges were able to offer in natural medicine”.
Dwyer expressed frustration that as a result of their TEQSA-accredited status, a number of courses with little or no scientific basis were set to receive Commonwealth funding despite the federal government mooting plans to cut funding for some alternative or complementary therapies and treatments.
“ You can’ t have one arm of government
[ essentially ] saying,‘ Stop wasting taxpayers’ dollars on providing subsidies for people who use iridologists or homeopaths or reflexologists, etc … until and unless there is credible scientific evidence that there contains some benefit’, and then another level of the same government saying,‘ OK, let’ s look at [ giving ] 6000-something dollars for every student who enrols in a course in a private college that will teach them how to actually deliver this level of healthcare’,” Dwyer said.
Saunders rejected Dwyer’ s criticisms, however, saying TEQSA had always acted in full accordance with the legislation governing its functions and would continue that. He added that the agency had no involvement in subsequent government decisions regarding the funding of accredited courses.
“ What I think John Dwyer’ s comments reflect is probably a serious misunderstanding of TEQSA’ s role, and its activities and its authorities,” Saunders told Campus Review.
The TEQSA chief said that in accrediting courses registered providers offer, the agency was bound by a number of rigorous standards but it was not its role to ensure that a scientific base underpinned every course it accredited.
“ It does not say anywhere in the standards – nor would it be appropriate to, I believe, given the diversity of courses that are available in higher education both in terms of public universities and private providers – that a course has to be scientifically based … And the standards certainly do not prescribe the content of a course in any field whatsoever,” Saunders said.“ You only have to reflect a little upon the [ variety and ] nature of the courses made available in higher education in Australia to realise we would not get very far if that was required. For example, what would we do with all the theology programs?”
Saunders said that as the agency could not act as an expert in every conceivable field of study, TEQSA routinely sought the expertise of eminent and respected experts in each professional field relating to courses under assessment for accreditation.
This way, he said, the agency was able to gain unbiased quality external advice on the content and context of courses and their material.
“ It is not uncommon for us to get comment back from referees saying there is not enough of that sort of thing,” he said.“ Not just in complementary medicine programs but in other programs as well.” ■
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