EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1984 NO.17
Issued by the authority of the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs
STUDENT ASSISTANCE ACT 1973
STUDENT ASSISTANCE REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
The Student Assistance Act 1973 provides legislative authority for the Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme (TEAS) and for Post-graduate Awards.
Section 36 of the Act empowers the Governor-General to make regulations for the purposes of the Act. The present Statutory Rules give effect to section 10 of the Act, which provides that approval for the grant of TEAS benefits is to be subject to and in accordance with the regulations.
The present Statutory Rules amend provisions of the Student Assistance Regulations relating to ineligibility for assistance under TEAS because of previous study and other academic reasons. They amend the definition of “relevant day”, which is central to assessment for ineligibility on academic grounds, and also amend the drafting of the rules relating to applicants’ progress in their last year of study (or last two years, if the latter year was undertaken on a part-time basis).
Regulation 1 amends existing sub-regulation 29(1) by omitting the former definition of “relevant day” and substituting a new definition in its place. The drafting of the former definition was criticised in R. v. Moodie ex p. Emery 34 ALR 481 at 493. The definition has therefore been re-drafted to clarify that a student’s eligibility for the full year of study is to be assessed on the basis of the student’s studies as at the first day on which the student commences or resumes studies in the academic year.
Regulation 2 amends existing sub-paragraphs 34(1)(h)(i) to (vi), which provide for the ineligibility of students who pass an insufficient amount of work in the last year of study in their course (or in the last two years, if the last year was undertaken on a part-time basis). The drafting has been amended so that -
(i) account is to be taken of work which students undertook in the last year (or years) and passed in a supplementary examination held in the current year of study and before the relevant day;
(ii) account is no longer to be taken under sub-paragraphs 34(1)(h)(i) and (ii) of work for which credit was received because of studies undertaken in a previous course and which students did not undertake in the first year of their present course (or first two years if the last year was part-time);
(iii) sub-paragraph 34(1)(h)(i) is now expressed to measure the subjects passed in the first year of the current course against “a year’s work”, rather than against “a first year’s work”. The amended wording is preferable where students receive credit for studies undertaken in a previous course and therefore undertake subjects beyond the first year level in the first year of undertaking their current course. (A similar amendment has been made to sub-paragraph 34(1)(h)(ii).)