widening participation and nurturing aspirations

What really happens straight after school: the messy educational journey

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This is the final post in our series of posts on AARE’s education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about widening participation and nurturing aspirations.

When we think about pathways between spaces or places, our imagination often conjures up straight or linear routes that effectively moves someone from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’. Imaginings about educational pathways are no different. There remains an unspoken expectation that the ‘ideal’ student will move from school to university seamlessly, study full-time. The ‘ideal’ student prioritises studies over all other activities and move efficiently through the system and into employability. But this idyll of the ‘turbo’ student is simply that: an idyll. The pathways into and through university can be highly disjointed. The material realities of life often significantly impact on educational decision making.

For those of us who work in the higher education sector, we have probably witnessed the very complex or circuitous paths taken through university. The convoluted nature of university pathways is statistically evidenced by the diversity in rates of completion. The most recent data reports that after 4 years of study (the average full-time duration of a degree) only 40.9% of all university students had successfully graduated with 37.39% still enrolled.

After school: dipping in and out

After 6 years, completion rates had increased to 61.77% with a significant percentage (12.88%) still enrolled, at nine years of enrollment nearly 70% had completed with 4.5% still enrolled (Australian Department of Education, 2023). We also know that learners frequently dip in and out of study. In 2023, 20% of domestic students deferred or departed university – that is 1 in 5 students choose to either leave or ‘pause’ their studies.

Despite these statistics, our understanding of learner pathways remains very limited. In Australia, we still do not have a way to comprehensively map the entry and exit points that our learners take. Once they leave university, there is currently no reliable and universally available pathway data to evidence future educational participation. This is a significant problem. In my own research with first-in-family university students, I have been repeatedly struck by the ‘messiness’ of these educational journeys.

An impossible destination

A project funded by the Australian Research Council highlighted how first in family learners (n= 375) reflected upon their own educational  biographies, describing  pathways that were both circuitous and meandering in nature. Many of these learners had left school early or had experienced absences from formal learning environments due to ill-health, poverty, or family caring responsibilities. Like the participants in the recent Aspirations Longitudinal Study, attending university was often ‘barely imaginable’ for many (Gore et al., 2023, p. 9). Some learners in my research indicated how university was regarded as an impossible destination for people ‘like’ them, as Mahalia explained:

‘University was probably something that I always wanted to do. When you haven’t got people that have been there before, it’s that whole stigma of “What do you want to do that for”, because it’s out of the norm so there’s not much encouragement…’

Mahalia (First-in Family, 43, Final Year B. Social Work)

The desire to attend university was similarly often crushed before even having the chance to mature, as Bailie highlighted:

‘‘When you are relatively consistently told that with your demographic, your background, you’re specifically more likely to fail it sort of sets up that whole culture of low expectations.’ (Bailie, First-in Family, 26, B. Arts/Law)

Several attempts

Confidence was a big issue for these learners and frequently it took several attempts at university study before individuals felt capable of persisting. Without a family tradition of attending university, learners described difficulty in gaining an understanding of the ‘inner’ workings of the system.

For example, Bradley, in the third year of an Arts Degree, reflected how his university attendance was ‘difficult because I don’t have that ultimate level of understanding at home or within a family circle’ (Bradley, First in Family, 20, B. Arts).  This gap in understanding could result in a much lower sense of belonging, or ‘less stickiness’ to the university setting, and as a result thoughts of leaving can consistently pervade university careers.

This is not a new problem. Over twenty years ago, Robinson (2004) pointed out the need for a longitudinal focus on the ‘educational “process” of student progression’ highlighting the lack of understanding about the ‘pathways’ that students ‘take through their courses’ (p.2). This continues to be the case. In Australia, and other countries, there is an ongoing focus on single points of progression, rather than examining the continuity of this enrolment throughout the student life-course.

A radical overhaul

To address this issue, we need a radical overhaul of understandings about university progression. Firstly, degrees should not be marketed and messaged to students in terms of a time-bounded commitment, a four-year degree remains a timeframe that is both normalised and assumed for commencing students. However, data has repeatedly indicated that concluding a degree within this timeframe is simply not achievable for many cohorts.

Instead, we need degrees designed with fluidity in mind, including the provision of nested qualifications that enable learners to depart in an ‘orderly and low cost’ manner. Having multiple departure points also provides the opportunity to slowly build confidence, the decision to leave early not understood as a deficit or problem but rather an accepted solution to personal circumstances or contexts.

Place-based pathways

Equally, the sector needs to foreground place-based pathways to allow seamless and circular movements between local educational providers. This includes shifting away from a narrow vision of pathways that assumes a one-way direction between VET and HE, instead encouraging and supporting multiple entry and exit points.

This pattern of attendance is simply more reflective of the actual lived realities of our learners. Finally, to achieve this a national (or international) system of recognition of prior learning (RPL) is needed. The current system remains state based and is somewhat ad-hoc, adding to the complexity of managing this pathway for learners and their families.

As universities shift inexorably into the ‘post-Accord’ environment, the need to embrace the circularity and ‘zig-zag’ nature of educational pathways becomes paramount, particularly if we are to retain and support learners from more diverse backgrounds.

Sarah O’Shea is a distinguished professor, acting pro-vice chancellor, research and governance and dean, graduate research at Charles Sturt University, a Churchill Fellow, principal fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has just completed an ARC Discovery Project exploring the persistence behaviours of first in family students. She is also a member of the ARC College of Experts

Aspiration: Why hope is not enough

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This is the fifth and final day in our series of posts on AARE’s education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about widening participation and nurturing aspirations.

We may all have things in common, but we are not all the same. We may technically all be able to aspire to become doctors, teachers, or lawyers. But we all know that many in our communities won’t have the resources or capital to achieve those aspirations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the analogy of us all being “in the same boat” was used frequently to suggest that we all are experiencing the same issues. But the reality is that some people were on five-star yachts. Others were on rubber dinghies with patches over punctures to keep them afloat. Some were in the process of sinking. The same analogy can be used when we think about educational access and outcomes.

Hope, motivation, and drive have played some roles for people who have risen above their circumstances to achieve great things. But hope alone isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to achieve the widespread systemic equity measures needed to ensure all young people can achieve their goals, whatever they may be. The most disadvantaged young people in Australia have as much talent and promise as any other young person. We must implement evidence-based approaches to ensure this cohort has the same rigorous educational experiences as any other young person in this country. 

Talent in abundance

Talent is in abundance across all identities and communities in our societies. But there are some cohorts who we statistically know are more likely to be disengaged or educationally disadvantaged, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students with disability, students under child protection orders, LGBTIQ students and students from low socio-economic backgrounds. This list isn’t exhaustive. But we know young people from these demographics are increasingly being excluded (formally and informally) from accessing mainstream schooling options. 

Over the past decades, there has been an increase in alternative or flexible schooling options for young people for whom mainstream schooling is no longer an option. These schools play a critical role in keeping young people engaged in education. But as the sector has shown no signs of slowing in its growth, we need to invest in understanding the short-term and long-term outcomes for young people who attend them. This is critically important because of the cohorts who attend them and the challenges some of these young people will face in the longer term, particularly if they have not received a high-quality education. 

Many young people have strong relationships with staff

In 2022, we delivered Australia’s largest survey of young people who attend flexi schools. 483 young people from 19 flexi schools nationally shared their perspectives on a range of topics including their experiences of learning, what they would like to learn about and their career goals. The survey revealed many young people have strong relationships with staff. They feel supported and that learning was ‘right for them’. However, just over half of the young people did not feel challenged in their learning. We also found that young people in flexi schools have diverse and high aspirations. The risk we outline in the findings is that flexi schools may have low expectations of young people’s willingness to engage critically with academic content. 

We talk about building aspirations and strong futures in providing accessible schooling pathways. But there needs to be closer policy focus on these cohorts who face layers of external challenges and who need robust schooling provision to create these pathways. There are gaps in policy and research in understanding the role flexi schools are playing in the education ecosystem. Because the cohort who attend flexis are more likely to be in groups who experience educational disadvantage as outlined above, this glaring gap needs urgent attention. 

Imagination Declaration

There is capability and excellence within all young people. If we look at the Imagination Declaration 2019, young people eloquently articulated:

 “The future of this country lies in all of our hands… we do not want to inherit a world that is in pain. We do not want to stare down huge inequality feeling powerless to our fate… it is time to think differently”. 

Enabling aspirations and strong futures means building a rigorous, research-informed understanding of how the most educationally disadvantaged students can thrive in all schooling contexts.

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Marnee Shay is associate professor and deputy head of school in the School of Education at the University of Queensland. She is nationally recognised for her research and expertise in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education, codesign, strengths-based approaches, educational policy and youth studies. Her maternal family are from the Ngen’giwumirri language group, Daly River region (Northern Territory). Her research has substantially impacted policy and practice in her field. She serves on multiple Government and School boards, including the Indigenous Forum at the Australian Research Council (ARC). She is a qualified and experienced Queensland registered teacher.

Early entry offers: how doing things kindly can make change

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This is the fifth and final day in our series of posts on AARE’s education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about widening participation and nurturing aspirations.

We have a long way to go to make higher education more equitable. Postcode, income, family background, and Indigenous status are still major determinants of who gains entry to university in Australia.

Thankfully, the incumbent federal government recently reaffirmed its commitment to equity as part of the Universities Accord. It states 80 per cent of Australians will need post-school qualifications to meet the workforce needs of 2050. It has also has proposed new participation targets for First Nations students, students from low SES backgrounds, those from regional and remote areas, and students with a disability by 2035.

Such goals have become increasingly important in recent months against a broader international backdrop of “anti-DEI” sentiment fuelled by the Trump administration. Equity is becoming heavily politicised and decades of progress already being erased in the United States.

Ensuring young people from underrepresented backgrounds have the opportunity to access university is important now more than ever.

Achieving these goals requires genuine structural reform. My research shows that early entry schemes offer some timely insights into what is needed.

Admission: A key piece in the puzzle

In Australia, the single most common pathway for a young person to gain entry to university is via an ATAR. That’s the scaled rank students receive at the end of secondary school based on their final exams and assessments.

However, young people experiencing disadvantage are either less likely to receive an ATAR at the end of high school or more likely to receive a lower ranking compared to their more advantaged peers.

Numerous studies have demonstrated this biased nature of the ATAR. It has even been suggested that the use of the ATAR as the major selection tool for university entry has directly led to the “replication…of the [university] student profile” over time.

To counter this lack of diversity, an increasing number of ‘alternative’ pathways to enter university have been developed. These pathways include, for example, enabling and bridging programs, portfolio entry, and articulation through a VET provider.

Such initiatives are designed to meet the needs, experiences and identities of a more diverse range of students. It also challenges conventional beliefs that ability, merit and talent are only expressed through certain forms of academic achievement.

University early entry: A contentious practice?

Many of these ‘alternative’ entry pathways support non-school leaver entry to university. Early entry schemes target Year 12 students by offering potential candidates a place at university using criteria other than (or in addition to) their ATAR.

By targeting this cohort, early entry schemes are seen as a “contentious practice,” sparking a moral panic. That’s based on the belief they cause students to lose motivation at school. This is because – as the name implies – students receive their offer well before main round university offers and sometimes even before their final exams.

Equity features in these schemes through shifting the dominant measure of achievement and ability beyond the ATAR. Instead, an offer might be based on a combination of Year 11 coursework, a recommendation from a principal, extracurricular achievements, a personal statement, or contribution to the community. Some schemes also target specific equity groups.

However, concerns have been expressed that early entry might actually work against equity goals. Why? More privileged students are also more likely to be able to accrue valuable extracurricular experiences and leverage their social networks. Early entry has also been called an aggressive “arms race” among universities. That’s based on the belief that universities use the schemes to simply meet their recruitment targets.

To counter some of these issues, new guidelines were put in place by the federal government in 2024 to restrict the timing of early offers. A new national framework  is currently being developed.

A chance to do admissions differently

Instead of seeing early entry as a ‘contentious practice’ because it is disrupting tradition, we should think differently. What if such schemes actually offered a genuine chance to do university admissions differently, ensuring university is accessible to all?

As part of a research study I led in 2023, I conducted interviews with school-leavers from underrepresented backgrounds who had gained admission to university via early entry. These students described complex home lives, forced displacement, struggles with physical and/or mental ill-health. They experienced intersecting forms of material and social disadvantage. Underlying their stories were four key principles inherent in early entry that played a significant role in widening access to those most in need. These included:

·   Recognition of broader forms of success and different kinds of capabilities, opening up the possibility of higher education.

·   The certainty of having a university offer much earlier in the calendar year. That alleviated the pressure and anxiety commonly experienced during senior secondary school for both young people and their families.

·   A sense of care for young people’s health and wellbeing, treating these as genuine concerns.

·   Empathy for the complexities of young people’s lives, helping them to make a more positive post-school transition.

The future

As we look towards the future of university admissions, we must move beyond the damaging depictions of early entry. These condemn young people for using these pathways. Instead, we must consider how these principles can foreground reform in this area, and how admissions processes can continue to evolve to better meet the needs of all Australians.

Sally Patfield is a lecturer in the School of Education and member of the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre at the University of Newcastle. Her research focusses on issues of equity and social justice across formal schooling and higher education, particularly in relation to educational and social inequities connected to social class, rurality, first-in-family status, race, and the changing nature of the education system.

Aspirations act as a road map for future action. Here’s what we must do now

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This is the fifth and final day in our series of posts on AARE’s education priorities for the 2025 federal election. Today’s posts are about widening participation and nurturing aspirations.

Aspirations help students identify who they want to be and how they want to get there. For example, we know students who report stronger aspirations to finish secondary school are much more likely to go on to do so, which has invaluable benefits for their future and the future of the country. 

Educators and school leaders build positive aspirations in young people by creating school cultures and environments in which students are able to envisage a future for themselves and, crucially, can access the supports and resources they need to make that future possible. School culture is multifaceted, comprising social, emotional, and motivational dimensions. My research has provided evidence for the crucial role of these different elements of school culture in fostering aspirations. 

A sense of belonging

Positive social relationships among students, teachers, school staff, and parents foster a sense of belonging, care, and safety within a school. Students that report stronger relationships with their parents, teachers, and peers are more likely to report higher levels of motivation and engagement, including higher aspirations. Positive school culture also includes individual and shared positive affective experiences.

Enjoyment and enthusiasm are influential: teachers’ expressions of enthusiasm for their work and their subjects informs students’ enthusiasm for learning, both in the long and short-term. Schools that actively foster students’ intrapersonal motivational resources via effective practices are better positioned to support students’ long term aspirations. When schools foster positive motivation, students develop the skills and underlying self-belief necessary to maintain their drive for their long-term aspirations. Similarly, schools that have a culture of high expectations are better able to communicate to their students that they believe in their capacity to make those aspirations a reality. 

Building a positive school culture is an intentional process and is a shared endeavour between school staff and students. Said another way, building this positive school culture takes time, effort, and resources. 

A vicious cycle can emerge

Sadly, one of the main factors that differentiates schools with cultures that foster adaptive emotional coping, social relationships, and achievement and those with less positive cultures is socio-economic and cultural status. A vicious cycle can emerge. Lower socio-economic and cultural status schools tend to report lower levels of achievement and other issues with building positive school culture. However, it is precisely the students who struggle with achievement and academic success that tend to benefit the most from positive relationships, shared positive affective experiences, and practices that foster motivation – in short these are the students who gain most from positive school culture. Because of this, equitable school funding, both in terms of money and resources, is inexorably linked with how we can help to build positive aspirations in our young people. 

Aspirations are not built alone. Students take in so many messages from their social relationships, their community, their school, and the broader culture to develop an imagined desirable future. Students work with teachers, parents, coaches, and other role models to identify where they want their life to go, including at school, at university, and beyond. All students deserve to have a ‘fair go’ at achieving that imagined future. It is our responsibility to advocate for practices and vote for policies that make this possible. 

Emma Burns is an ARC DECRA Fellow and Senior Lecturer of educational psychology at the Macquarie School of Education. Emma’s research focuses on the socio-motivational factors and processes that impact adolescents’ adaptive engagement, achievement and development, especially in STEM. To examine these diverse mechanisms, she uses advanced quantitative research methodology, such as latent growth modelling and multi-level structural equation modelling.