Opinion
A bumper report on equity was released by the Australian Centre of Student Equity and Success this week. It is important, and has a range of facts and perspectives in there, but not an infographic to give the short of time enough shock to spur them into action.
One imagines it is likely to be read by almost none of the students that universities seek to benevolently transform. That is not to say the report is not worthwhile, but it is worth asking why discussions on equity are typically held inside the Tertiary Tent.
If you actually want a million more students, mostly from underrepresented cohorts to enrol in the tertiary sector over the next 23 years, confining the conversation to well-meaning sector titans and the relatively few students who have managed to make it into the system is a problem. The conversation needs to include the naysayers, the dejected rejected who tried to enrol and couldn’t or wouldn’t, the NEETs (Not in Employment Education or Training) that keep Barney Glover awake at night, and the people who influence them.
No offence, but the equity agenda needs to be driven by professional marketers and recruiters alongside the long-term equity campaigners if you actually want to get people in the door in droves. It’s a systemic failure to keep thinking that well-meaning policy and the advocacy of sector stalwarts will show us how to recruit the people who reject, or feel rejected by the tertiary system, and those who despise, ignore or aren’t served by the system.
The report itself is a call to a different kind of action. The overarching sentiment was that the higher education system and its institutions must act differently if students from underrepresented backgrounds are to experience a genuinely fair and equitable education playing field.
As Western Sydney U’ s Karen Nelson writes: “Only by understanding and reshaping the conditions that enable or constrain student success can we build a higher education system capable of meeting the Accord’s ambition and Australia’s needs.”
But first, and most importantly we must take a moment to question who or what an equity student actually is – as Victoria University Vice-Chancellor Adam Shoemaker eloquently notes in Future Campus today (below).
The report carries a range of short testimonials from sector luminaries about the importance of seismic change to the way the sector and institutions operate if equality is to be achieved, and to its credit includes short pieces from three students who come from under-represented cohorts.
Three students who have made it past the barriers into the system amongst the voices and thoughts of 23 sector heavyweights is not what one could call a representative sample of the million or so currently outside the sector that the Accord indicates we need to lure in by 2050.
The work of ACSES is important in keeping the issue of equity on the agenda and understanding a range of insights into equity issues. The Centre is a national treasure, but its work is not designed for the practical realities of engagement and recruitment. The sector needs to actively privilege the voices and insights of those who aren’t yet inside the system while also demonstrating a level of respect to the expertise of the professional staff who will be tasked with attracting the unengaged and excluded in future.
We need a more inclusive national conversation to understand the costs, delivery modes, curriculum preferences, communication changes and support that are required if Education Minister Jason Clare’s vision of an ‘Open Door’ is going to get close to reality.