Universities Australia Has Its Say on Higher Education and the Socio-Economic Divide. (April 16, 2008)

No sooner had TFW reported on The Guardian's article on affirmative action the Texas way (if you're in the top 10% of your high school's graduating class you gain automatic admission to any Texas university) than Universities Australia (UA) released its 141 page report PARTICIPATION AND EQUITY: A review of the participation in higher education of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds and Indigenous people.

The report was prepared for UA by the Centre for the Study of Higher Education of the University of Melbourne and according to Professor Alan Robson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia and Chair of the Group of Eight:

Using evidence-based analysis to assess the factors influencing equity and participation in higher education, the scoping study found that in terms of performance at university, low SES participation is more an issue of access than success once enrolled.

Parental education levels and parental occupation levels reveal more of the substantial differences in students’ financial circumstances and more of the effect of differences in finances on students’ capacity to study, than does the current postcode-based analysis.

However, low SES remote students and Indigenous students continue to be the exceptions in terms of positive outcomes from university participation.

In the light of present knowledge, the most effective way to improve the participation of people from low SES backgrounds and Indigenous people in higher education is to recognise that we need a better policy framework comprised of inter-related policies and a package of policies, rather than any ‘magic bullet.

The Universities Australia action plan comprises two major elements: policy initiatives and research initiatives. The policy initiatives suggest steps that can be taken within the current policy framework. The research initiatives are aimed at supporting better evidence-based policy initiatives to improve equity and participation of students from low SES backgrounds in the future.

Australia must do all it can to ensure all those who can benefit from higher education are able to do so.

We need a national approach that recognises the federal-state, cross-portfolio and cross-sectoral forces at play; and that ensures that all stakeholders are able to work collaboratively and consultatively to improve equity and participation in Australia’s higher education sector.

Quality partnerships between and among schools, vocational and technical education institutions, employers, communities and universities – and governments - are at the heart of achieving that goal.

Together with the report from the Centre for the Study of Higher Education UA released its Universities Australia Action Plan: Advancing Equity and Participation in Australian Higher Education.

Interestingly while the CSHE study refers to affirmative action initiatives in the United States:

In the US, there are many universities with aggressive and effective equity programs, sometimes enshrined in state legislation that specifies admissions targets. But the US is also renowned for some of the most socially privileged institutions in the world in which family influence and ‘cheque-book’ admissions prevail. A powerful account of this phenomenon has been provided by Daniel Golden in The Price of Admissions (2006). Overall, however, the US has a tradition, if uneven, of open access and equity that has focused on the participation of minority groups, particularly after President Lyndon Johnson’s legislation for affirmative action to redress the legacy of racial discrimination, which opened the doors to universities for African-Americans. Significantly, though, affirmative action is still under sustained attack and in the past decade affirmative action programs in the United States have been successfully challenged in legal cases with significant ramifications for public and institutional policies for staff and student recruitment alike (Allen 2005, Douglass 2007).

It makes no mention of the approach taken by the US state of Texas for the past ten years.

UA summarises its action plan in the following series of boxes:

IHEAC = Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council

DEEWR = Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

That ought to keep 'em busy for years before they actually might do anything.