Jason Clare is determined to lift HE participation rates-it might be harder than he hopes

In the Reps last month Education Minister Jason Clare answered a question about the impact of HELP indexation on graduate study debt, responding his focus was expanding university enrolments from disadvantaged groups. “This is what we’ve got to fix. The cost of university degrees is important, and the cost of living is important, but the cost of those kids from those communities missing out is important too. This is what we’ve got to fix. This, at its core, is what the Universities Accord will be all about.”

It won’t be easy. In CMM this morning Andrew Harvey (Griffith U) warns schools separating students into vocational and ATAR streams has a lasting impact on opportunities, HERE

“Students who are Indigenous and/or from low socio-economic status backgrounds are highly over-represented in the non-ATAR streams, which themselves rarely lead to university. Increasing the proportion of low SES students and Indigenous students in higher education is thus unlikely to happen without school reform.”

It’s a new, and alarming, selection for Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series, Needed now in learning and teaching