Over the last week I’ve made a series of speeches outlining the Government’s response to the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education, which was released in December.
I’ve dealt so far with the need for structural overhaul of the higher education sector – specifically a move to a more student-focused model of planning and funding. I’ve dealt with the need to turn our VET sector into a dynamic pathway of opportunities for students and employers alike.
Today I want to talk about equity.
I’ve accorded it equal status with these other big issues for a reason. Equity matters to national productivity. It has always done so but the Global Financial Crisis brings a new urgency to the debate. Why? Because when the recovery does come we will need to ensure that everyone is able to fill the increasing opportunities presented by an expanding economy.
In past periods of economic growth we have done too little to bring the opportunities of growth to all Australians. We’ve left communities behind while at the same time we have complained about shortages of labour and shortages of skills. This time we should not repeat those past mistakes.
Everyone here will be familiar with the importance of raising levels of education and skill to enhance national productivity.
And everyone here would recognise the most seriously under-represented groups in higher education are those from remote parts of Australia, Indigenous students, those from low socio-economic backgrounds and those from regional locations.
This connection is the starting point for the Bradley Review. Professor Bradley points out convincingly that strengthening our human capital is the key to continuing Australia’s economic and social progress. This is a proposition most economists now accept.
She also shows – or, more accurately, warns – that Australia is starting to drop off the pace in the proportion of our population with degree-level qualifications.
From 7th in the OECD 1996, we are now 9th. We have fallen well behind the top six. We know that our economic competitors and regional partners are improving their research base and their participation rates.
Australia must catch up – and the Rudd Government is determined that it will do so.
What is the equity problem?
But while lifting levels of educational attainment and increasing educational quality are starting points for Bradley, the heart of her argument is the need for equity.
This is of course an important moral issue. Equality of opportunity always has and always must be a central Australian value.
When we see footage on the nightly news of young people in remote towns or urban centres with nothing to do, putting their future in peril when they should be at school, we know we must do better and they must do better.
But it’s also an economic issue. Without greater equity in our higher education system, Australia simply cannot obtain the high-level knowledge and skills we need to compete with the most successful economies of the world.
It’s that simple.
Consider what other comparable nations are now doing.
In Australia only 32 per cent of young adults have been to university.
In contrast, Sweden has a national target to have 50 per cent of all people up to the age of 25 participating in higher education – a target they have almost achieved.
In the UK the target is 50 per cent of all those up to the age of 30 by 2010 – they’re currently at 43 per cent.
And in Ireland the target is to have 72 per cent in the tertiary relevant cohort with a tertiary qualification by 2015. They’re already at 55 per cent.
Countries like these have significantly increased participation rates amongst disadvantaged groups – the result of determined effort and the implementation of innovative programs. Our participation rates, however, have remained static in recent years, because little effort has been made.
For the past decade, equity has not been a priority. And it shows, particularly when it comes to Australians from remote, indigenous, regional and low-socioeconomic backgrounds.
Today, a secondary student from a low socio-economic background is only around one-third as likely to attend university as a student from a high socio-economic background.
People from regional and remote areas are also seriously under-represented in higher education and in recent years their access and participation rates have actually declined further.
And Indigenous people are still vastly under-represented.
All of this is simply wrong. We should have addressed it a generation ago.
In the past, many conservatives have argued that this level of inequality was OK because putting more emphasis on equity would dilute standards.
I’m a stickler for standards. In fact, it’s my firm belief – which I share with people like Rupert Murdoch, Joel Klein, Chris Sara and millions of other Australians – that to expect anything but the highest standards for everyone is a cop out. Telling the disadvantaged that it’s alright to be mediocre is to betray their future. George Bush was right to condemn the soft bigotry of low expectations.
But this hoary old conservative argument that equity and standards are incompatible is nothing but a myth. Or, rather, a prejudice.
Because as Professor Bradley points out, and I quote:
Despite low access rates, the success rate (or tendency to pass their year’s subjects) of low socio-economic status students is 97 percent of the pass rate of their medium and high socio-economic status peers…
So despite all the hurdles placed in their path, achievement levels for poorer Australians are almost exactly the same.
This is something anyone who has ever been to university of TAFE will tell you: that no matter what school students come from, their success as adults will depend on their raw talent and willingness for hard work.
The university lecture theatre and the online tutorial are great social levelers.
Here, in this simple proposition, is the starting point for the creation of a more highly educated, more socially cohesive and wealthier future for Australia.
We have the talent. We have the quantum of intellectual raw material for wealth creation in the knowledge economy. Now we have to use it.
Where do we start?
First, we need the determination and clarity of purpose to make a real difference.
COAG has made a start by seeking to halve the proportion of adult Australians without Year 12 or an equivalent qualification by 2020, and to at least halve the gap in Year 12 attainment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by the same date.
Consistent with this, I announced last week that our aspiration is to have 40 per cent of all 25-34 year olds attain a higher education qualification by 2025.
To focus the minds of our universities, schools and families on equity, I want to announce today that the Government will pursue vigorously the ambition that by 2020, 20 per cent of higher education enrolments at undergraduate level should be of people from low socio-economic backgrounds.
The current level is around 16 per cent, representing close to 92,000 students. The additional low SES enrolments in 2020 required to meet our goal is approximately 55,000.
From those numbers you can see the scale of the task ahead.
But our great institutions are turning their minds this issue.
In December I announced $11 million in funding for new outreach and aspiration raising projects in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia. Mentoring programs, collaborations with schools in disadvantaged regions and pastoral support for students are having an effect.
The right programs can make a significant difference.
For example the University of South Australia, where Professor Bradley was Vice Chancellor, offers bonus entry points and comprehensive support services to actively encourage disadvantaged students to enroll and succeed in undergraduate programs. Uni SA exceeds the enrolment rate for disadvantaged students we want the country to achieve.
What else is necessary?
We know there are other ingredients needed to make this aspiration achievable.
The Government is currently legislating to enable universities to restore the student services and supports undermined by the vicious and ideologically blinkered approach of the previous Government.
We will examine Bradley’s recommended changes to income support for students, and will respond at the time of the Budget.
But there are a more fundamental series of reforms that the Government will need to pursue. Our efforts to reach this target have to start at school.
This is where the really heavy lifting has to take place, because as Bradley demonstrates, higher education enrolment is connected to family income and the educational attainment of parents.
It starts in the early years, and the Government is putting in significant resources to try to develop the learning capacities of every child and create a world-leading early childhood education system.
It continues in the school years.
Today just 59 per cent of students from low socio-economic backgrounds complete year-12 – the entry point for most for higher education. For the most affluent group it’s 78 per cent. We have to raise both these figures.
Every Australian child must be able to go to a school with motivated teachers, modern facilities and rigorous academic standards.
The Rudd Labor Government is undertaking a massive modernisation project to rebuild Australia’s schools. Our aim is to transform the quality of the resources and equipment available to every teacher. The scale of the investment is unprecedented and extends from radically improved online facilities, to vocational workshops and specialist trade skills centres, to new libraries, assembly halls and science blocks.
Through the COAG Agreement reached in November last year the Government is investing $1.1 billion over four years specifically in schools in low SES areas to improve student learning and to achieve better transitions to further learning or work. COAG also agreed to an historic new investment of $550 million to improve school leadership and teacher quality.
This is not just about bricks and mortar.
It is about what takes place in the new buildings, in classrooms and across school communities. It is about providing the tools and creating an environment where positive relationships between students and teachers and among students themselves, can flourish.
It goes to the quality of the learning taking place, the literacy and numeracy being developed, and the way the curriculum and learning needs of disadvantaged students are being met. As a result of our new transparency measures it also goes to the accountability of our schools so that we know where success is being achieved and so that good practice can be identified and shared – and finally addressed.
Importantly, every higher education institution must play its part. Our elite institutions have by far the lowest proportion of low socio-economic status enrolments. While uniformity will never be possible or desirable, every institution should be able to improve its social inclusiveness. To quote Professor Bradley:
Social inclusion must be a core responsibility of all institutions that accept public funding, irrespective of history and circumstances.
Our regional universities are playing their part. Recent research by Leesa Wheelahan reveals that regional universities are enrolling an average of 10 percent more students from the poorest backgrounds than applies on average across the sector.
Higher education needs to be strong across the country including in regional Australia, our outer suburbs and growth corridors.
Bradley is highly critical of the existing loading on Commonwealth funding to assist regional university provision. She says it is often difficult to discern the relationship between the existence of a loading and the location of a campus.
The Government makes the commitment that the cost of providing quality teaching and research in regional Australia will be examined and a new, more logical basis for funding will be introduced. This is about Government being transparent and open with resourcing in contrast with resource decisions in the past that were politically motivated and determined.
The Government has also agreed to support a feasibility study to explore how Charles Sturt University and Southern Cross University might come together to improve the offerings for students and for regional communities. $2 million will be made available so that the potential of their proposal can be examined.
We also have to ensure there are more direct student pathways between Vocational Education and Training and university. We can significantly improve the links between these qualifications and university entrance.
However improved equity is a challenge across the tertiary landscape. The profile of students participating in higher end VET qualifications is similar to the general profile of university students – that is, there are too few low SES students enrolling and participating.
It is a further reason as to why the Government will ask the Australian Qualifications Framework Council to embark on qualifications reform that improves student pathways across the tertiary sector.
The pathways of Indigenous students through school and beyond are a major focus for the Rudd Government. Indigenous students are under-represented on our university campus. It is not just a question of access however. Retention rates are lower compared to other students – according to Bradley, between 19 and 26 per cent lower than non-Indigenous students during the past six years.
The Government recognises the distinct nature of the challenges facing Indigenous students. We will work closely with the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council to improve higher education access and outcomes for Indigenous Australians.
But as Professor Bradley points out, to achieve a step change in educational equity we need to begin a real revolution in attitudes towards education among everyday Australians.
The aspiration to attend university or TAFE comes from many sources, but one of the most crucial is parental attitudes towards tertiary study.
This isn’t just an Australian phenomenon; it holds around the world. In almost every country in the OECD 15-year olds in the lowest quartile of socio-economic status have around half or lower the level of aspirations to obtain a tertiary education as their wealthier counterparts.
In some nations, though, this isn’t the case. Positive cultural attitudes towards higher education can be extended to even the poorest of families.
In Korea, 87 per cent of 15-year olds in the poorest quarter of the population aspire to tertiary study. Australia does better than many, but here the figure is just 52 per cent. Remember, just 50 years ago, Korea was one of the poorest nations on earth. Today it is a member of the OECD.
Yes, every school must make it its business to overcome the disadvantages a child brings to the classroom. But change has to be deeper. The building blocks of educational success start in the home.
In suburbs, in country towns, in remote Australia and in the poorest households across the nation, Australian parents need to encourage a positive attitude towards education, to nurture a love of learning and to rejoice in learning success as children grow and mature.
There’s no easy way to do this. Governments can’t enforce changes in family behaviour – and nor should they. This has to come from within families; through parental leadership; by setting good examples.
Through changes in attitudes like this, and with the support of school communities and partnerships between schools and universities and TAFE, more disadvantaged Australians can succeed at school and in higher education. Other nations have shown it can be done.
I fully understand that in setting a target for low SES enrolment I am institutionalising a creative tension between governments and universities about our schools.
Universities will say that they can only make a difference to low SES enrolment if governments around the country are prepared to play their part and schools are prepared to rise to the challenge.
I welcome and want to institutionalise that pressure from universities on to government. I want universities to care deeply and passionately about our schools and I want a systemic reason for universities to hector governments about school resourcing and school quality.
But creative tension runs two ways. That’s why I will be saying to universities that this challenge is shared.
Conclusion
The Government is committed to higher education.
We see it as the key to creating a more prosperous and more cohesive nation. One that will come out of the Global Financial Crisis well positioned to succeed.
And we are committed to substantial reform.
Equity is an essential element of reform. We want to see our higher education institutions giving every Australian the opportunities they deserve and the nation needs.
The investments we make will be used to leverage this reform and change. We understand that institutions can’t do it all on their own. Equity must involve improvements to early childhood education, to schools and to family attitudes towards education. It will take significant cultural change. But today through setting a target I have formalised the need for every higher education institution to play its part in contributing to this goal of equity.
Thank you.