THE Ministry of Education is concerned with the lack of regulation in the education sector to control standards and quality.
Interim Minister Filipe Bole said the current lack of control offered no protection to the student and the community.
"The ministry embarked on the urgent task to establish the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for the central role of regulating the higher education sector in a Fiji," he said.
Mr Bole said the Commission would ensure that tertiary institutes contributed to the nation's social, economic, political and cultural progress.
"Our liberal and free approach to the provision of higher education will encourage an overproliferation of higher education institutions, especially from overseas," he said.
"These ‘crowd out' the local providers and create a situation of over-supply that will further breed other issues."
The Higher Education Commission will ensure that higher education institutions contribute to the nation's social, economic, political and cultural progress by providing high quality education and training that meet current and future development needs of the nation.
Fiji Teachers Union general secretary Agni Deo Singh said there were a host of higher education providers in the country and there needed to be some standards and quality control.
He said there was also a need to look into the cost of higher education and how education providers advertise their products.
"For example private education providers from Australia and New Zealand advertise as if they were giving a NZ/Australia passport to the students," he said.
Mr Singh said the Lautoka Teachers College and Fiji College of Advanced Education should also review their courses and provide graduate programs.