by CLAIRE FIELD
a nuanced, forward-looking approach is needed – not simply introducing reforms to improve participation
With the higher education Accord Panel receiving more than 300 submissions to the Discussion Paper, it is pleasing to see so many of those published focus on greater equity in higher education, particularly for First Nations students.
While the Panel considers how best to improve higher education participation, attainment and crucially outcomes for students from under-represented groups, sadly the same discussion is absent in VET– despite the latest annual NCVER data showing:
* First Nations students are over-represented in VET but more likely to enrol in lower AQF qualifications and less likely to pass subjects and complete qualifications than other students.
* for people with disability the key issue is very low levels of participation in VET – just 4 per cent of VET students report a disability compared to 9 per cent of people in the workforce and 18 per cent of the total population.
* unemployed learners have high rates of participation in VET and achieve similar levels of academic success but are much less likely to report improved employment status after training; and
* the VET system seems to work reasonably well for students from low SES backgrounds with high participation, similar levels of academic success and employment outcomes similar to other students.
Interestingly, as Curtin University’s Sarah O’Shea argued at this year’s Universities Australia conference – with 50 per cent of equity students in higher education experiencing multiple disadvantage there is a need for a more nuanced approach. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research has started to report on the overlap between equity groups, for example of the First Nations students in VET in 2021:
* 33 per cent were also low SES
* 32 per cent were unemployed
* 12 per cent lived in a remote area
* 9 per cent reported a disability
* 4 per cent reported speaking a language other than English at home.
As Commonwealth, state and territory ministers finalise negotiations for the next National Skills Agreement it is to be hoped that they will place equity at the heart of the new funding arrangements for the sector. And that in doing so they will adopt a nuanced, forward-looking approach – not simply introducing reforms to improve participation but instead focussing the system on supporting learners from different backgrounds (often experiencing multiple forms of disadvantage) to study meaningful qualifications which prepare them for jobs in the new economy.
Claire Field spoke to the Brotherhood of St Laurence’s Kira Clarke about these issues, and the proven equity programs that work, on the latest episode of the What now? What next? podcast.