by CATHY STONE, SHARRON KING and CHRIS RONAN

It’s not easy for regional students around Australia to go to university, especially those in less populated states. Our research with South Australian (SA) regional high schools highlighted some of the challenges that contribute to SA’s lower Bachelor attainment rates compared with the national regional average. Geographically, access to a university is a significant challenge in itself. With large distances between regional towns, a relatively small population (of which a higher proportion is based in the metropolitan area), SA has no regional cities, no regional universities and few regional campuses.

With NCSEHE funding we surveyed 198 year 11/12 students across 14 regional SA schools. We also ran student focus groups and interviewed 23 school educators. Similar to other Australian research, we found high aspirations for university amongst these ATAR-pathway students, but there were significant barriers also, including: living too far away from a campus; financial concerns; and lack of knowledge about university, courses and careers. The absence of regional universities and scarcity of regional campuses meant that moving to the city was seen by most as the only real option for university. Of those who lived near a regional campus, most were not keen to go there due to the limited range of courses offered. Most students were planning to take a “gap year” not only to have a break from study and earn money, but also to postpone their decision.

Unfortunately, neither students nor school educators found university outreach visits to schools helpful, regarding them as little more than university marketing exercises and not providing the information that students needed. School excursions to city universities were seen as much more useful, but not all schools could afford to offer these.

As a result of this research, we recommend that governments fund excursions to universities for all regional schools and that universities collaborate more closely with schools and communities to design appropriate outreach. Also, universities should seek more innovative ways to offer local options for regional students. The ideal of being able to study locally, with face-to-face study support, appealed to around half the students (49 per cent) we surveyed.

With regional mature-age students embracing on-line learning for more than a decade, we suggest that the “normalising” of on-line learning due to Covid-19 presents an opportunity for universities to attract more younger students to online study. Collaborating with resources such as the Regional University Centres Network to incorporate a face-to-face experience could make local study a realistic option for many more regional students around Australia and lead to higher participation rates in SA in particular.

Dr Cathy Stone, Conjoint Associate Professor, University of Newcastle [email protected] @copacathy

Professor Sharron King, Dean of Programs, UniSA College. [email protected]

Chris Ronan, Equity and Engagement Director, Country Universities Centre network. [email protected] @Ronan_CT