higher education

The strange world of medical school for working-class and Indigenous students: doing extreme social mobility

higher education, Social mobility, university entrance for disadvantaged students, , , ,

What happens when becoming a doctor is a battle between staying true to yourself and fitting in to an elite profession? It sounds dramatic, but this is the struggle that working-class and Indigenous students face when entering the strange world of medical school.

Medicine – the final equity frontier?

Medical school has traditionally been the domain of white, upper middle-class males. There have been gradual shifts over time, with females and non-Anglo students now well represented. But when it comes to social class and Indigeneity, it’s a different story.

Medical schools have been slower to respond to the opening-up of higher education to diverse groups evident in teaching and nursing degrees. It’s a similar pattern in law. These high-status degrees represent the final frontiers for the widening access agenda in higher education. In undergraduate medical degrees, just 10% of students come from low-socioeconomic status (LSES) backgrounds and 1.9% are from Indigenous backgrounds. Proportional representation relative to the population would see 25% of students from LSES and 2.3% from Indigenous backgrounds.

What are the hurdles?

Are the privileged favoured in medical school admissions processes? Or are working-class and Indigenous students not applying? In Australia, low-socioeconomic status students have a higher success rate in medical school applications than their high-SES peers, but apply in smaller numbers. The exceptionally high ATAR for medicine is a substantial barrier for people from these backgrounds, as is the multi-phased admissions process, including hurdles such as the expensive Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test. British and Australian research shows that low-socioeconomic status students imagine that medical school is full of ‘posh’ geniuses, and that they will not fit in.

Medical school: a strange new land

Working-class and Indigenous students find themselves in a clear minority when they arrive at medical school. Starting university is a tough transition for many students, but this is compounded by the pressure of the intensive coursework of medicine and trying to develop a sense of belonging in an exclusive environment. We recently interviewed medical students who were the first-in-family to go to university – most were working-class and a significant proportion Indigenous. These students had to be particularly strategic to succeed in the profession while struggling to remain connected to their families and communities.

Medical education involves socialisation into an elite, high-paid profession. Many of our interviewees entered medical school expecting not to fit in, and they did notice how different they were. Other students had ‘money to throw around’, and were ‘a different breed’, more ‘polished’ and ‘clean cut’. In contrast, some of our participants described themselves as ‘a bit rough around the edges’.

The students had to work hard to build knowledge and connections around medical careers that their middle- and upper-class peers already seemed to have. One told us that:

everyone seemed a lot more confident because a lot of them had planned to do medicine since they’d entered high school and had always wanted to do medicine. A lot of people have parents that are doctors and people in their family that are doctors, so I really had no idea, I didn’t know what actually happened after medical school.

‘99% medical student, 1% bogan’: Forging professional identity

Students described gradually becoming more confident in the world of medicine, but this involved a shift in identity and behaviour. Some changed the way they spoke, adopting the professional communication style taught within the degree.

How were these students seen by their families and communities? Becoming more like a ‘doctor’ meant creating a rift between their old and new identities, a source of tension for students themselves and people they had grown up with. One described her friends making comments like, ‘You won’t come back to [our town] when you’re rich’. An Indigenous student was uncomfortable with the high status afforded doctors – status was for her most often reserved for community Elders.

Our research showed these students were caught between two worlds: no longer fitting easily into their old lives, nor into medical culture. One said, regarding the other students on her course:

I do find it hard to relate to people that are from rich families….I don’t know, there are all these things that I’ve seen and done that are different to what they may have seen and done…

Interviewees recognised that their backgrounds were a professional asset that gave them an advantage when treating patients, most of whom also do not share the privileged background of doctors. An Indigenous student noticed that many students were ‘quite clueless with Indigenous health’. Another said that because of his ‘very humble’ background, growing up in an environment where people had little money and poor health, he understands where patients are coming from.

What stood out was the commitment of these students to return to their communities as doctors. The areas they came from – typically low-SES, rural or Indigenous community – are the very places most in need of better healthcare access. Encouraging doctors to work in these regions has always been a challenge, and there’s evidence that the best strategy is to recruit students who grew up in these areas.

Having this goal of returning to serve community meant that participants were not prepared to forfeit their identities to fit some medical professional norm. Instead they were learning to succeed in both worlds. One participant proudly told us he was ‘99% medical student, 1% bogan’. Another said:

I might have to be a slightly more refined version of myself as a doctor. But I think with the patients I’ll still be okay and with my family, I’ll still be much the same.

Understanding extreme social mobility

Australia’s comparatively good rates of social mobility are less apparent in high status professions. The proposed increase in university fees, especially for degrees like medicine, may well curtail what limited mobility exists. It’s important for educators and policy makers to better understand journeys of extreme social mobility. Understanding how people from ‘humble’ backgrounds make their extraordinary journey into, through and beyond medical school is important if the profession is to diversify and become more inclusive of the truly talented, regardless of social background.

 

Erica Southgate is an Associate Professor at the School of Education, University of Newcastle, Australia. She is her first in her family to go to university. In 2016, as national Equity Fellow, she conducted research on increasing access to high status professions such as medicine, law and engineering for young people experiencing disadvantage and marginalisation. She believes emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality can be used to broaden the career education of young people and is the author of the report: ‘Immersed in the future: A roadmap of existing and emerging technology for career exploration.’ https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Immersed-In-The-Future-A-Roadmap-of-Existing-and-Emerging-Technologies-for-Career-Exploration.pdf

 

 

Caragh Brosnan is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research focuses particularly on understanding how different kinds of knowledge come to be valued in scientific and health professional practice and education. She recently led an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award project, Complementary and alternative medicine degrees: new configurations of knowledge, professional autonomy and the university. This explored how what is taught in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) degrees reflects the professional status of CAM, at the same time examining the broader relationship between professions and the university. Caragh’s work on medical education has focussed on issues of equity and access, as well as on the construction of legitimate knowledge in medical curricula. Her publications include the edited collections, the Handbook of the Sociology of Medical Education (Routledge 2009) and Bourdieusian Prospects (Routledge 2017).

What is happening with higher education in this election? (Yes you should be worried)

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You might share my concerns about what is looming for higher education in the coming election. A returned conservative government would continue with its agenda to significantly cut funding to universities. It appears likely to continue with its plan to deregulate fees, albeit at a slower pace than previously proposed.

However the alternative that Labor seems to be proposing for higher education is based on a flawed assumption.

Pyne’s “dumped” package is still in play

Two years ago, the then federal Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, proposed a radical set of changes for higher education funding including, among other things, a 20% cut to university base funding and full fee deregulation. While the latter received support from some institutions and Vice-Chancellors, there were very few supporters of the whole package.

Among those who did not support it were the ‘cross-benchers’, the independent and minor party members of the Parliament of Australia who have held the balance of power since elected in 2014. So, thankfully, the proposals were not passed.

The Turnbull government has since introduced Senate voting reforms which means the minor parties will not be able to swap preferences in order to secure Senate seats as they have done in the past, and there is less likelihood of a future cross bench like the current one. This is a shame for higher education, in my view, as these folk actually listened to the sector and public and responded accordingly.

Mr Pyne has now moved onto other responsibilities. I will remind you just before he moved on he told us he was “the fixer”.

The new and current Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, has released a discussion paper in lieu of budget measures.

However, a former senior Education bureaucrat, Mark Warburton, has pointed out in a piece in The Mandarin that Birmingham’s discussion paper includes some assumptions that were contained in Christopher Pyne’s 2014 budget, and abandons others. But is not completely clear what is in and what is out.

As Warburton says, it appears certain that the 20% cut to student subsidies under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme (CGS) remains in the budget and that the government has also made it clear that it remains committed to Pyne’s reforms.

He adds that the government has clearly announced two additions to the higher education package. The first is that there would be an additional one-year delay to the start date, until the beginning of 2018. The second is removing the full deregulation of fees.

But Warburton points out that the additional proposals in the minister’s discussion paper are not included or mentioned in the official budget papers. They are simply options in a discussion paper. And one of these options is the incremental introduction of fee deregulation. This is indeed not Christopher Pyne’s proposed one-step approach, however it is very much an introduction of higher education fee deregulation.

To sum up my concerns about the Turnbull Government’s plans for higher education

I’m worried about the potential impact of a 20% funding cut to the ability of some regional and other smaller universities to operate. The opportunities for regional, rural and remote students to access university education would surely be affected.

Fee deregulation, no matter how it is undertaken, will lead to fee increases. My concern is this will set up yet another hurdle for various non-traditional student cohorts, because of actual costs or the perception that university education is too expensive.

Labor’s intentions for higher education is based on a flawed assumption

But I’m also worried about Labor’s intentions around higher education. Kim Carr has indicated that Labor will fund universities differently in the future, pointing to the importance of students completing programs of study that they start. The logical follow-through is that universities will be funded for completions, and the get-paid-as-you-enrol-students-each-year arrangement will no longer apply.
The assumption behind this sort of initiative is that universities need to stop letting students drop out. As if we do let students drop out. In fact, universities employ a wide range of strategies to keep students.

The strategies we use include the following: pre-enrolment advising; enabling and preparatory programs; concurrent academic support; counselling services; options to change enrolment internally with credit should a student’s original choice not be suitable; scholarships and bursaries; equipment loan schemes; financial assistance with study related costs; student-friendly approaches to administration and interaction; monitoring and responding to at-risk sub-cohorts; proactive advice provision; mentoring from experienced senior students; transition programs; staff coordinators; strategic directions from Councils; senior appointments charged with improving retention. Significant funding is directed at all of these efforts.

We do our best, improving our efforts every single semester, following every piece of research and other robust evidence that guides our efforts. At my university we trial new ways to put in place preventions and interventions, and we closely monitor the effects of these.

Having tried as hard as we can to keep them, we ask students who finally do decide to leave why they are leaving and feed that back to relevant parts of the university to drive continuous improvement. We ask students who stay what helped them to stay and succeed and feed that back to relevant parts of the university to recognise and reward efforts that work. Many other universities do the same.

But when students drop out, it is often because of demographic and/or personal factors, rather than because universities have stood by and let them fall away. Demographic factors that can contribute to the likelihood of drop out include being: part-time; mature-age; online; first year; an articulator from VET; the first in family to attend tertiary study; from a low socioeconomic status background; Indigenous; and/or a student with a disability. There are increasing numbers and proportions of these students in a massified university system.

Personal factors include challenges related to students’ physical and mental health, their finances, their family responsibilities, their paid employment commitments, relationship issues they might experience and/or accidents or misadventure. And when these personal challenges intersect with demographic characteristics, the impact can be profoundly negative for the student and their study success, despite every effort by a university to assist and to encourage them to stay in study.

Punishing universities for enabling students who have the characteristics above to get a higher education seems perverse. The exclusive universities will do well and the elite will prosper. Is this really what Labor wants?

We need an effective higher education package that will benefit all Australians

I’m worried that cuts to funding, fee hikes, funding formula changes and the absence of a cross bench who will not do deals with major parties will leave students, their families, their communities, the professions, the economy and society worse off.

As I see it the policies on offer so far will mean that many Australians will be turned away from higher education and the benefits it brings both personally and to the nation as a whole.

Marcia Feb 2016Professor Marcia Devlin is a Professor of Learning Enhancement and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Quality) at Federation University Australia. @MarciaDevlin

Decelerated curriculum is here. It’s about engagement not more swipe and like literacies

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Capturing student attention is often framed as the driver of technological innovation in universities. However, using more screens rarely results in a deeper investigation of ideas. Instead, it can promote quick swipe and like literacies.

Instead, we need to deploy strategies that slow down engagements with ideas, texts and knowledges so students find spaces to think critically, engage with deep knowledge and reflect. I call this a decelerated curriculum.

The screen age

Screens now percolate our physical environment, from ATMs and Eftpos machines, through to digital billboards, and art installations. Most of us carry at least one screen around with us. The ubiquity of the screen makes interaction with environments, people and places more complex and creative. The potential of this interactive experience is harnessed by clever ideas, such as QR codes for example, that effortlessly integrate online and offline consciousness.

These types of functional interactivities are what many educators are attempting to use to transform education from what is popularly decried as out-dated 20th century chalkboard and duster teaching to a flexible framework for mobile learning.

Multiplying screens in the world of university students

Students today have grown up with the internet. They typically own multiple devices, and have a diversity of internet, web and app-based literacies that work outside the tried and tested vocabularies of traditional education. Lectures and tutorials are decried as outdated and out-of-touch to the needs of these multitasking students. Traditional educational forms are too slow and mundane for jacked-in, digi-literate users.

Universities do indeed need to adapt. There is a place for wireless educational interactions and spaces populated with screens and touch interfaces, that offer multiple points of interaction with social media, learning management systems and flexible information management tools. Curricula and syllabi can offer the latest apps, Ted Talks, MOOC opportunities, and interactive testing, all in the service of capturing the attention of these highly mobile and fragmented digital natives.

It’s not the screens that matter

In an idealised education students learn at their own pace, in authentically interactive environments. Teachers ideally collaborate with them, using technology, to create a learning environment that is tailored specifically for them. Most importantly, this deployment of technology is coded to function as the catchall of that most difficult and mysterious of all educational challenges, student motivation.

The technology is seen provide the bridge between teacherly expertise and student interest. Teachers won’t need to worry about student engagement because the right app, programme, or interface will service those needs. As long as it is online, digitised and device ready, the students will be engaged.

However, what this approach belies is the fundamental problem of attention management. More screens do not capture attention, they fragment it. Students accelerate across their screens moving from platforms via different windows, gleaning information and processing at speed.

What is needed is the space and time to slow down from these interactions. It is through slow consideration of ideas that expertise is able to grow and percolate. It is not acquired, downloaded and archived. Education is as much about the student growing as a person as it is about them learning to process information into knowledge. This requires time, development and maturity.

The decelerated curriculum

What is needed is a decelerated curriculum. This is not a syllabus that nostalgically returns to the old ways of teaching and learning. Nor is this a radically new way of thinking. But the focus on using more screens to capture attention subverts the strongest potentials of education, to cultivate thinkers rather than scanners, critiquers rather downloaders, innovators rather than likers and swipers.

Our students already have an accelerated literacy. The point of education is not to provide more of what they already know, but to offer diverse experiences that make them effective learners, critical citizens and reflexive adults. This means asking them to slow down, to experience the world from a different perspective so that they make relevant and engaged choices.

How to decelerate

Moving towards a decelerated approach to teaching and learning means asking students to focus their attention on one idea or one task for an extended amount of time. It involves building their scholarship from information management into reflexively activated knowledges. Teachers may use a number of strategies to scaffold the disciplining of attention and mobilisation of contemplation. The objective is not to get to the answer or write the essay in the most efficient and effective manner, but to ponder the problems and potentialities in a question, topic or idea over time.

This process may also involve elements of digitisation and screen-based interactions, but done so in the service of amplifying the time focused on an idea. A semester long research project, for example, at first year level can introduce students to depth in investigation and demonstrate respect for knowledge. It can ask them to use their devices in ways that offer an intensified digital presence with a database, research task or required reading. This can be balanced by offline work that slows their interaction with texts so they cannot swipe or click through to new material. In doing so, teachers are teaching attention, focus and scrutiny by allowing students the space to think.

Students now face a number of demands as a result of a changing and highly unstable working environment. Getting the right education while accumulating high levels of debt is stressful. Many are being trained for jobs that may or may not exist when they graduate their degree. Universities are facing increasing competition under the demands to capitalise on business outputs. Digitisation is being framed as a way to excite students and streamline university processes.

It is indeed a time of great change, but I believe students do not need more screens. They need a decelerated curriculum in order to manage the screens they have and learn in more deeply relevant and effective ways.

McRaeLeanne McRae has been teaching international students at undergraduate and postgraduate level for over fifteen years. She is an expert in popular cultural studies and proficient in curriculum design and delivery with innovative approaches to pedagogy.

Leanne specialises in popular cultural studies, creative industries, mobility studies, pedagogy, postwork theory, and postcolonialism. Leanne is currently a lecturer and course co-ordinator in Internet Studies at Curtin University.

Digital Footprint: not everyone is equal and why unis need to teach managing DF as a 21st century skill

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Australians are among the most digitally connected in the world and young people spend a lot of time online. Most young Australians have an extensive digital footprint, especially university students.

Digital footprints are created through interaction with the internet and social media. Increasingly, digital footprint management is an important career development skill and one that is vital to the professional opportunities of university students.

However, we know very little about what university students know and do, in regards to their digital footprints. This post provides an initial overview of our* investigation into Australian university students’ understanding of their digital footprints. This research and our data collection are still taking place.

ABS data indicates that over 90% of Australians aged 18-40 regularly use the internet. The increase in online activity and social media usage has implications for digital footprints given that 800 000 Australians post videos online, and of the 47% of 16-25 year olds that use platforms such as snapchat, 25% admit to posting material of a sexual nature online.

Digital Footprints

Such social media activities can create a negative, publically accessible digital footprint that can detrimentally impact an individual’s current prospects and future careers.

However, responsible online engagement can create a positive public persona which acts as ongoing résumé of achievement and identity.

Management of digital footprints is a 21st century life skill, a lack of which could have serious social and professional consequences for students. Popular media is full of warnings about the problems caused by poor digital footprint management:

From The Age: “What if today’s sexting teenager is tomorrow’s prime minister – adult lives can be marred by the digital footprint students are laying down now.”

From the SMH: “Young ones, your online reputation is, like, forever”

Professional social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, make the professional implications of a badly managed online presence clear: “Your digital footprint is ruining your job application”

Higher Education, Social Media and Digital Footprints

Yet, with our increased digital connectivity having no online presence can be as detrimental as having a badly managed one. Research tells us that

  • Human Resources practitioners are increasingly using social media in recruitment, selection and hiring practices.
  • Social Networking awareness is largely absent from the Higher Education curriculum.
  • Curation and management of digital footprints is emerging as an essential skill for career development, yet universities are not adequately addressing this.

In regards to university students:

  • Students with a high Socio-Economic Status (SES) background are coming to university with more technological knowledge and skills, have more experience with, and positive attitudes towards the use of ICT, than students with a low SES background.
  • These students are better placed, than students from other backgrounds, to develop and manage their digital footprints while at university.
  • Higher education institutions must help students who are coming to university without the digital education confidence and knowledge develop the required digital skills for success and achievement at university and beyond.

The Equity and Digital Footprint Project

Our project focuses on this emerging equity issue to better understand what undergraduate students from low SES and non-traditional backgrounds know and do in relation to their digital footprints. Information from this research will be used to develop resources to help students build a positive digital footprint.

To achieve this we are currently:

  • Reviewing the relevant literature
  • Conducting an online survey of university students across Australia to determine their knowledge and behaviour in relation to digital footprint management.
  • Running focus groups with University of Newcastle students to speak to students in more depth about their use of professional social media.
  • Doing an audit of university online resources on digital footprint to determine how well Australian universities are addressing this issue
  • Conducting an online survey of ICT educators, policy makers and higher education career service personnel to garner collective wisdom and evidence of which educational approaches would be most effective for students.

Preliminary findings

While it is very early days, our initial explorations reveal that:

  • “Anecdata” abounds – There is lots of anecdotal evidence about the uses and abuses of social media and digital footprints, and media reports of the sensational examples provide only a distorted picture.
  • There is conflicting information about the extent to which employees are using digital footprints to vet applicants.
  • Students are aware that their internet usage creates a digital footprint, and they employ a variety of strategies to minimize or manage their digital footprints. These strategies range from a refusal to use social media, judicious use of privacy settings, minimal or highly strategic use of their real names when online, through to working from an assumption that privacy does not exist. Most students see their digital footprint as a liability rather than an opportunity.
  • While Universities in the United Kingdom are producing some excellent comprehensive resources and services for digital footprint education the approach is very uneven in Australian universities.

Given the emphasis on excellence and equity in Australian universities and the pattern of increased access to universities from students from all backgrounds it is important that universities provide adequate support to all their students. Increased access to university is not an achievement if students are not provided with the resources and skills to participate and succeed in, and beyond, university. Not all students come to university with the necessary digital skills and knowledge.

Given the increased importance of social media management and having a traceable online presence, digital footprint education can provide students with opportunity to turn access and participation in university education into success; a positive online presence acts as an on-going record of identity and achievement.

 

BuchananDr Rachel Buchanan is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Newcastle. She teaches educational foundations and researches into the equity and social justice implications of education policy and the increased deployment of digital technologies within the education sector. She can be contacted via Rachel.Buchanan@newcastle.edu.au or found on twitter: @rayedish.       *Rachel is undertaking this research with Dr Jill Scevak, Dr Shamus Smith and Dr Erica Southgate. This project was funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, through a HEPP National Priority Pool grant. More information about our research can be found here

Vice Chancellor Stephen Parker: Pyne’s higher education reforms doomed to failure

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Christopher Pyne and I were on diametrically opposite sides over the Higher Education and Research Reform Bill and its associated Senate Committee inquiries, so the reader needs to interpret my comments in this light. 

Minster Pyne repeatedly said I was the only one of 41 “vice-chancellors” who did not support his reforms.  In the House of Representatives he was critical of the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) at the University of Canberra, implying that its findings were biased because I was in charge of the university in which it was housed.  Even Tony Abbott acknowledged subsequently that NATSEM was one of the best-regarded modelling organisations in the country. So I guess I do have a starting point in this analysis!

I believe Christopher Pyne’s failed attempts at higher education reform is almost a textbook example of how not to get complex and controversial reforms through the Australian parliament. The Coalition did not control the Senate and did not spend time getting to know the people who held the balance of power.

The proposal to cut 20% funding to universities, partly to save money and partly to extend Commonwealth Supported Places to private higher education providers and sub-bachelor places, came out of the blue and flagrantly breached pre-election promises that there would be no cuts to education and no change to university funding arrangements.

Then there was the proposal to retrospectively apply a real interest rate to existing HECS debtors (when debts have been linked to CPI since the inception of the scheme).  I don’t think this really hit home to people. Hundreds of thousands of voters would have had a debt hike they could do nothing about. It was a real sleeper.

Let’s get on to allowing universities to charge domestic undergraduates what they wished, without any valid modelling of the impact on debt levels, or how young people would make choices in the light of an income-contingent loan scheme.  I use the word “valid”. I don’t actually know whether any modelling at all was done, because the nation’s experts could not say what the impact would be. Their best guess on fees was a doubling or trebling of levels, but it was only a guess.

Yes, the idea to apply the real rate of interest on HECS debts was dropped. It was a relief to many, but it also scuppered any logic to the scheme.  If the government were to borrow money at the long-term bond rate and lend it to students at a lower rate (in circumstances when default would also rise) then the changes would cost money not save it.   The more fees went up, the bigger the gap between the price of money to the Government and the amounts recouped. This was why I described the situation by December 2014 as “ideology in search of a problem”.

My colleague Ben Phillips pointed out that tertiary fees are part of the CPI basket, so a rise in higher education tuition fees would mean that a whole range of benefits and payments would also rise. He did not get a response to his observation from the Abbott government. By this stage we were talking about a scheme that would lose billions.  It couldn’t have lasted.  It would have inflicted debt on several cohorts of graduates until Treasury realised what was happening.  By this stage (circa February 2015) I was no longer sure it was ideology in search of a problem: it just seemed like it was all about saving the Minister’s skin, despite his self-proclaimed fixer status.

I could go on (I do, in fact, often) but suffice it to say this was policy by ambush, trimmed on the run in the face of evidence, and personalised in the face of opposition.

I welcome Labor’s intention, announced on Monday, to set up a Higher Education Commission, which would introduce a non-political rational actor to higher education reform, and to use Green and White Papers to allow reasoned debate.

 

Stephen-Parker1 copyProfessor Stephen Parker AO is the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Canberra. He was previously the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Monash University in Melbourne. 

Prior to taking up senior management positions Stephen was a legal academic.  He has lectured at University College Cardiff, the Australian National University, Griffith University and Monash University.  He was Dean of Law at Monash from 1999 to 2003. 

Stephen moved to Australia from the UK in 1988, having mixed lecturing and legal practice over the previous decade.  He graduated with honours in Law from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Wales.  He is admitted to legal practice in England and Wales, the ACT and Queensland

Stephen has published books, monographs and articles on the court system, legal ethics, family law and children’s rights.  He is also the co-author of a textbook called Law in Context, which is designed to introduce law students to the way that other disciplines view law.

He has held various major research grants in relation to projects on lawyers’ tactics, lawyers’ values, discretionary rules, family law, judicial independence and reform of civil procedure.  In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

Stephen was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) as part of the Australia Day Honours in January 2014 for his distinguished service to tertiary education through administrative, academic and representational roles, and as a leader in the growth and development of the University of Canberra.

Pyne’s proposed changes to higher education will polarize institutions and students

Changes to higher education, Education policy,

It is good news for many of us involved in higher education that the radical changes to higher education proposed by Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, might not make it through parliament without amendments. But not everyone opposes his plans.

Vice-chancellors of several Australian universities seem to like the idea of fee deregulation. It would mean they could charge higher fees, particularly for high demand courses and particularly in high status institutions, such as The University of Sydney and The University of Melbourne.

There are some wild predictions of increased quality, but the real reason for the support is that our universities are grossly underfunded – the legacy of the Howard years of below OECD funding levels. Those around for the post-Howard after-party will recall vice-chancellors laying bare the higher education funding crisis in the lead up to the 2009 budget. To the surprise of most, the new Labor government kept its word and increased funding, although not at levels universities needed and later it even took some funding back.

Some might find abhorrent the latest escalation of market ideology but the reality is that governments are retreating from public investment in higher education. VCs have been placed in an invidious position, to keep the system operating at or above world standard but without the resources they need to do it.

As Melbourne VC Glyn Davis says:

‘We need more money and governments won’t give it to us’.

However the Federal Government likes  the idea of fee deregulation and a “demand driven” funding system because it fits with its strategy of devolving responsibility for public services while retaining control. And it fits nicely with the recent Commission of Audit to increase student fees.

The idea of fee deregulation is one of the many recommendations made by the Kemp and Norton Review, instigated by Christopher Pyne, to look at, and make recommendations, in relation to the lifting (in 2012) of previously imposed limits on the funding of bachelor-degree students at public universities. The full review can be found here.

Another of the Review’s findings that seems to be popular is that low SES students would benefit from accessing sub-bachelor degrees (Diplomas, Advanced Diplomas and Associate Degrees) because it will provide another pathway into higher education. Even the revamped National Centre for Student Equity likes that one.

But where is the evidence that we need another pathway?

Students from low SES backgrounds are accessing bachelor degrees in universities in record numbers and continue to be retained at rates similar to their peers. Redirecting them to sub-degrees will increase the time and money they need to invest in order to get to the same destinations, further penalizing them for their disadvantage.

Kim Carr, Labor shadow minister, warns that with the removal of price control, elite universities will increase degree fees, and thus (because of debt burden fears) the poor will opt for sub-degree courses in second-rate higher education institutions.

Universities Australia Executive Officer Belinda Robinson says that any changes to higher education should be debated and be evidence based. She also questions the legitimacy of governments giving money to private higher education providers listed on the stock market.

Weighing into the debate, Chief Scientist Ian Chubb says that Review claims about the employment shortages for science graduates are not supported by the data.

Staff and student unions point out that Australian university students are already paying high fees by world standards and any rise will leave them heavy in debt.

And if the National VET Equity Advisory Council hadn’t recently been disbanded by the government, it would have tabled its recent research evidence that private higher education providers, including TAFEs offering degrees and associate degrees, have a poor equity record in higher education. As a ‘pathway’, their retention rates for equity groups are particularly shocking.

The bottom line is the combination of raising student fees and redirecting low SES students into sub-degrees will mean students from disadvantaged families will be relegated to low status institutions and degrees, if they are able to get a higher education at all.

No wonder the Review recommends ditching the attainment and participation targets. I’m pyne-ing already for the old days.

Trevor GaleTrevor Gale is Professor of Education Policy and Social Justice at Deakin University, and a past president of the Australian Association for Research in Education. From 2008 to 2011 he was the founding director of Australia’s National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education. He is chief investigator on two current Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grants, one researching the social justice dispositions of secondary teachers in advantaged and disadvantaged Melbourne and Brisbane schools, and the other researching the aspirations of secondary school students in Melbourne’s western suburbs. He has recently completed research for the National VET Equity Advisory Council on the equity track record of private higher education providers.