Every regional hub targets a population where residents are almost half as likely to receive a university degree than their city-based counterparts.

The new locations announced on Monday are in East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, Victor Harbor in South Australia, Warwick, Chinchilla and Innisfail in Queensland, Central Western Queensland, King Island in Tasmania, Katanning and The Pilbara in Western Australia, and East Gippsland in Victoria.

Assistant Education Minister and Regional Development Senator Anthony Chisholm said the hubs created a “campus-like environment” to reduce geographic barriers to tertiary education.

“Students can access support, the latest technology, and be part of an engaging learning environment to help them achieve their academic goals, without having to leave their community,” Mr Chisholm said.

Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour welcomed the hub for East Arnhem Land, in the remote far north-eastern corner of the Northern Territory.

“It means people can study on-country without the added cost and burden of travelling interstate,” Ms Scrymgour said.

“These can be real barriers for our people to getting a quality education."

There are currently two similar hubs in Arnhem Land, servicing Wuyagiba, Nhulunbuy, Galiwinku, and Ramininging.

“Having a study hub in East Arnhem Land means more local people will get the qualifications to fill local jobs, which are otherwise filled by workers from interstate," Ms Scrymgour said.

According to Mr Clare's announcement university participation has increased in locations with existing hubs.

“I want more young people to get a crack at going to university and we know that postcode is a massive barrier for young people getting that chance," he said.

Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy said the hubs are a great step towards bringing universities closer to people living in regional areas.

“These are sensible initiatives that could move the dial on participation among underrepresented
student cohorts while addressing skills shortages and supporting Australia’s economic needs," he said.

“Universities Australia has called on government to prioritise such recommendations in the
forthcoming federal budget."

There have been 34 regional study hubs built since 2018, and the government plans to build 20 more, including the ones announced on Monday.

Applications for the next 10, and 14 other Suburban University Study Hubs will open in the coming months.

Some industry insiders are anticipating an announcement of the launch of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission by Education Minister Jason Clare in the lead up to the May budget, following a recommendation in the Universities Accord report ­released last month,

In the report, review chair Mary O’Kane outlines a proposal for a commission led by a chief commissioner, with two deputy commissioners, a First Nations commissioner, an equity commissioner and the already established regional education commissioner below it.

The commission would have a broad remit to guide higher education policy, direction and funding decisions. International Education Association of Australia chief executive Phil Honeywood has called on Mr Clare to create a commissioner role to oversee international education, as the sector faces increasing pressure under a government push to halve net migration in two years.

The number of student visa ­rejections has soared in recent months as Labor attempts to crack down on temporary ­migrants using the visa category to work rather than study, ­referred to as “non-genuine ­students”.

“The IEAA board is keen to have a deputy commissioner who has got responsibility for key international education policy advice,” he said.

Mr Honeywood said the government clearly remained concerned about international student numbers but cautioned against “pushing the pendulum too far”.

Independent Tertiary Education Council of Australia president Troy Williams said the sector had for too long “navigated without a compass”, backing calls for an international education commissioner to lead a “coherent” and “consistent” strategy.

Mr Williams wrote to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil to warn that recent messaging on international students could ­“inadvertently undermine” the sector’s reputation.

“Statements that international students can perceive as unwelcoming or overly critical of the sector have the potential to dissuade future students from choosing Australia for their studies, impacting not only our educational institutions but also our national economy and cultural diversity,” he wrote.

Higher education researcher Andrew Norton has raised concerns that the commission would be a “powerful body” that could push the Education Department to one side.

“I think a plausible reading of the Accord report is that it’s going to be a very bureaucratic interventionist approach,” he said.

Mr Clare said the government was “considering all the recommendations of the Universities Accord and will respond shortly”.

Ms O’Neil has introduced a string of measures targeting overseas students following a review of the migration system, including higher English-language ­requirements, a new genuine student test and activating new powers to suspend “dodgy” providers.

Higher education providers are bracing for the release of new risk ratings due by the end of the month, under which Home ­Affairs will assign education institutions a level between one and three based on their rate of visa refusals, cancellations, fraud and subsequent protection visa applications. Many are anticipating that some institutions which formerly held the highest ranking will receive a lower mark.

Thursday's HEDx Changing Higher Education for Good conference called university leaders to action ahead of the finalisation of a government response to the Universities Accord final report.

In this episode, Chair of Universities Australia, David Lloyd gives his keynote address to the conference attendees.

Also, hear responses on the Accord and international student policy from a panel of vice-chancellors, including Andrew Parfitt from the University of Technology Sydney, Helen Bartlett from the the University of the Sunshine Coast, and deputy vice-chancellors, Jessica Vanderlelie from La Trobe University, and Kent Anderson from the University of Newcastle.

Amidst concerns about decreasing domestic enrolments at a time of critical skills shortage, restricting of international student enrolments, and heightening student dissatisfaction, there were lively debates and solutions proposed.

Should universities wait for a commission?

One of the recommendations of the Accord was to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC). A number of university leaders were in agreement, believing it is a required first step towards university policy reform agreements.

If a tertiary commission was to go ahead, it's a reform that would have to be government approved, in the same way as the recently green-lit student ombudsman.

One of the roles of the proposed commission would be to protect the sector reforms, and shepherd them through any successive changes of government; acting as a "buffer" for the 47 Accord recommendations, some of which are expected to take 25 years to implement.

Chair of Universities Australia (UA) David Lloyd addressed the conference on this issue, saying that there had been enough discussion about ATEC and now it was time to act.

"[ATEC's] proposed establishment is perhaps the most urgent consultation that's needed in all of the items that are in the final report," he said.

"Most, if not all, of the recommendations in the final report hang off the establishment of the ATEC.

"Now that we have the [Accord] report, funnily enough, we're still doing a lot of talking.

"As a sector, I think it's pretty safe to say that our voice has been heard. I have to be honest, for my part, I'm looking forward to doing less talking and just getting on with it."

Although, he added, he still has many questions about what a commission would look like.

"How big will it be? How far will its powers extend? Will it add value or will it add another layer of red tape and bureaucracy? How would it differ from the functions already within the Department of Education?" he asked.

"Does it make sense for [the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency] and the [Australian Research Council] to sit within an ATEC structure? Is it going to be a permanent body? Is it going to have a finite lifespan? I could go on, there's so many unknowns in this."

Other leaders were of the opinion that a commission might slow reform down, adding unnecessary government processes at a time when universities need to act quickly to address the nation's need to grow a university educated future workforce.

Deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Newcastle Professor Kent Anderson pointed out the Accord process has already been relatively slow, noting that universities 'didn't have to do any policy reform' during the 18-month Accord consultation period.

Of the process he said: "Then [the government] said, 'Well, we're not going to tell anyone what it says for another three months."

"Then they say, 'Oh, well, we can't really do anything until we get this new committee together to look at what we might do.'

"And then they really can't do anything because it's talking about 2050. And so we need three or four governments.'"

Chief executive of the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership Professor Marcia Devlin urged universities to start making changes to their teaching practices and policies now.

"I think we could all do more, and we could all realise the power that we have. There is no 'other'," she said.

"People used to come to me all the time when I was [a deputy vice-chancellor] and say, 'The university needs to do this, and the university needs to do that, and the university needs to do the other.'

"And I [would say], 'Well, who are you talking about? You are the university. I am the university.'"

Student wants vs university priorities

Chief executive of digital career consultant FourthRev Omar de Silva pointed out universities could be missing enrolments because a number of prospective students believe that going to university won't necessarily give them a better career outcome.

"[University research is] all important work, but it's not what the average student's thinking about," he said.

"Many people don't understand that that's not necessarily the university's priority number one, or even two or three, and I think that that creates more challenge."

Ed-tech start-ups are already fighting the equity battle

Overall, discussions shone a light on the importance of student experience, including international student experience, with an understanding that if university enrolments and education outcomes are to improve, attitudes towards and experiences of education overall needs to be more positive.

Chief executive of youth career advice website Year13 Will Stubley said many students are fearful of university, especially those from equity groups; cohorts the Accord says unis need to attract in order to double the number of university-qualified workers by 2050.

Year13 helps year 12 students explore and find a way into higher education through both mainstream and alternative channels.

Mr Stubley said his year 12 surveys show that year on year, more school leavers want to apply to university, but don't because of confusion or a lack of confidence.

"They don't think they're good enough," he said.

"The metric that always rates highest for our surveys is students have a fear of the future, and then you go a little bit deeper on that, and, unfortunately, the ATAR is a massive reason for that."

Mr Stubley explained universities, and start-ups like Year13, need to figure out how to decrease social, intellectual and administrative barriers to university if school leavers are to become more confident in applying.

"If you can deal with that barrier and then [implement] stepping stones - like, you can just get this unit or this skill as an entry point - that's the bridge to get them into higher levels of education." he said.

"It's actually a social issue which provides economic benefit."

Timothy Rennick, student success leader at Georgia State University (GSU) in the US, addressed the Universities Australia Solutions Summit in February, and told how GSU was able to cultivate a sense of belonging for disadvantaged students and break down bureaucratic administrative processes, both issues which are identified as barriers for equity groups getting to university.

My mum was an academic and a hugely passionate one. Consequently, I spent most of my holidays, many evenings, and countless weekends perched beside her at her desk at the Queensland University of Technology Gardens Point campus.

Like any child of a shopkeeper or restauranteur, I spent holidays, weekends and evenings either helping in the family business or doing homework at the corner table. Our family business was academia.

My parents grew up in rural western Queensland, and are the first in their families to attend university. It was a slog for them to get there, and a slog for them to complete their degrees. But both did. They met each other during their years at the University of Queensland, and supported each other to complete their undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications, so they could each go on to build solid careers.

They’ve been divorced for 20 years, so it’s not an idyllic romantic tale. But, it is a love story about university. University was the making of both of their lives. It let them dream bigger and opened doors. For my dad, it was his ticket off the land. For my mum, it was her everything.

My mum’s profound appreciation for the transformative impact that university education had on her life led her into academia. This also meant that in her work as an academic, she was deeply committed to helping others have the kind of transformational university experience she’d had.

During my early years and into young adulthood, I would’ve met close to 100 students and colleagues my mum championed and for whom university unequivocally changed their lives. Higher education pulled them out of difficult circumstances and gave them social mobility, cultural capital, diverse connections, and opportunities that wouldn't have been available to them if they had not undertaken higher education.

This is why I thought universities were so magical. I saw first hand how life changing and truly transformative they could be.

I understood that accessing university was more challenging for some people. Still, I believed, for a long time, well into my university career, that once the barriers to access were removed, then the transformation could begin. I didn’t understand that for many people, opening the door to university is just the first barrier, and there are multiple other hurdles from there.

It won’t surprise you to learn that, to date, most of my career has been in universities. I worked for over 10 years in professional staff roles – positions focused on student support, international development, engagement, and events. I then into the academic space for several years as a casual research assistant and tutor.

Looking back now, I am deeply embarrassed at my naiveté and my blinkered, privileged perspective. I always existed in university culture, and tertiary study was just a given, natural next step in my life. I could live at home, work casually and study whatever I was interested in. For many of the early years of my career, even while working directly with students, I still knew very little about the complex, intersectional barriers people face in seeking the educational opportunities that were so readily available to me.

This doesn’t mean that studying at university was easy for me. It was just hard in the right way.

University is meant to be challenging. The content should stretch and provoke minds, expand knowledge, skills, and abilities. University often involves long hours, an annoying commute, and juggling study and work. But these are ‘normal’ challenges – the difficulty and complexity everyone faces when pursuing higher education.

This is not the inequity and systemic exclusion that equity groups - Indigenous Australians, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and people living with disabilities - face, that is intersectional inequity and systemic exclusion.

Universities are aware of inequity and exclusion. Most have substantial equity, diversity, and inclusion policies and committees. Many develop research on migration, social cohesion, economic participation, diversity, and inclusion. And most universities would argue that they exist for the public good.

However, students, staff, and communities from equity groups are not seeing changes from these policies, nor the beneficiaries of this research. They are still struggling to overcome barriers that go further than juggling a casual job and an annoying commute.

Paraphrasing Sally Patfield’s excellent article in The Conversation – access to higher education study is vital, the growing parity of equity groups numbers is ambitious, and developing policies and programs to connect with those equity groups is essential. Those connections might even open the door to a few more prospective students from underrepresented groups. Still, more policies and programs will have little to no impact on equity if the sector is not listening and responding to the needs of these cohorts. It's time to take appropriate action to remove barriers, address inequity, and change the university system.

I will further discuss this at HEDx's ‘Changing Higher Education for Good’ conference in Melbourne on Thursday, alongside my colleague, former University of Melbourne People of Colour Committee officer Mohamed Omer. We are appearing on a panel called ‘Accelerating in our pursuit of social justice and equity’ with several other excellent speakers, thinkers, and innovators who advocate for access and equity across different spaces.

Mohamed and I will speak on issues of systemic racism and exclusion that culturally diverse people (including international students) experience in university education; whether that be accessing uni, balancing studying or seeking post- study support and opportunities.

As universities and the broader higher education sector explore the recommendations of the inclusion-focused Australian Universities Accord, Welcoming Universities recommends that a culture of welcoming all students and cultivating a sense of belonging for disadvantaged cohorts is placed at the centre of all Accord reform efforts.

Welcoming opens the door, invites students in, and helps them overcome hurdles. Belonging is the next step. Belonging ensures that everyone “feels valued, connected and able to be their authentic self”¹.

Through extensive consultation with students and communities facing barriers to accessing, completing, and working in university education, the Welcoming Universities network offers actionable ideas, approaches, and measures of success that puts inclusion at the centre of universities.

My hope is that conversations like the one happening at HEDx next week, along with the work of Welcoming Universities, along with other equity work such as the disability-advocating Universities Enable initiative, will restore the magical possibility of universities I saw as a young person.

I truly believe that university and higher education can be even more transformative if people from all backgrounds and communities are welcomed and allowed to belong.

Cate Gilpin is the coordinator of Welcoming Universities, an organisation that advocates for an inclusive culture in tertiary education where every student is made to feel like they belong. Several universities, including Charles Darwin University, the University of Melbourne, UNSW, the University of Wollongong (UOW) and Western Sydney University have signed up to participate in Welcoming Universities initiatives.

On this episode of HEDx Podcast, Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) director Shamit Saggar joins Martin Betts and co-host Paul Harpur to reflect on equity actions recommended in the Universities Accord.

ACSES is a newly rebranded centre that will collect evidence-based data on disadvantaged and low-socio economic groups, the cohorts the Accord strongly suggested need to have more opportunity to obtain a university qualification.

Strategies developed through its trials will be presented to universities, so they know exactly where to allocate funds to support and attract those student cohorts.

Professor Harpur leads Universities Enable (UE), a disability steering group that offers support to universities in developing disability action plans. UE submitted feedback to the Accord's interim report, advocating for students and prospective students living with disability.

Professor Saggar's and Professor Harpur's reflections on the Accord final report, and the prospects for its implementation in the months and years ahead, provide great insight into what needs to be done to carry out the review's mission of inclusion.

Professor Burke was invited to give the keynote address at the Universities Australia Solutions Summit, where tertiary education sector leaders gathered in Canberra under a 'harnessing universities for national priorities’ theme.

Below is an edited version of her address. A recording of it in full and other information about Professor Jane Burke's work, and that of the UNESCO Chair in Equity, Social Justice and Higher Education, can be found here.

It’s a great honour to be invited as keynote speaker at this year’s Universities Australia Summit and I thank the organising committee for the privilege and opportunity to be part of ongoing conversations about the perplexing and challenging problem of creating equitable higher education – and perhaps even more importantly generating sustainable higher education for equity and social justice. I want to acknowledge the immense leadership and knowledge in the room and the collective work across the sector to build more equitable and inclusive educational institutions.

It is impossible to consider developing equitable higher education without acknowledging the colonial histories embedded in global educational systems and ensuring that we generate higher education equity that foregrounds, respects, embeds and recognises the knowledge, wisdom and values of First Nations peoples. Repositioning higher education as a force for equity and social justice can be at the heart of these important commitments.

Equity is not peripheral to higher education practice; it is a profound part of all that we do. The work of equity requires us to reflect deeply on the directions we are taking, and what values underpin these directions.

As a society, we are facing profound and urgent issues of which widening inequalities are a massive challenge, and so there is an imperative for us to reimagine higher education and its key role in the face of such confronting social issues.

Experiencing a global pandemic has helped uncover our human and more-than-human interdependency. It has forced us to pause and contemplate new approaches. And yet, we are all too quick to recover the TINA effect – the narrative that there is no alternative. In a rush to recovery, we forget to ask critical questions about what forms of higher education we want to enable, for whom and why.

So, let’s activate our collective imagination through critical questioning:

• What is the purpose of higher education?
• Who participates and on what terms?
• What has equity and social justice got to do with it?
• How might we reimagine higher education as a vehicle for equity and social justice?

The collective act of critical questioning challenges the status quo and activates our capacity to imagine new possibilities. Critical questioning enables visionary thinking. It helps us make rich, nuanced and textured connections – to better understand ourselves as continuously formed in relation to others including those who have been historically excluded from projects of higher education development.

The urgencies of our time are a matter for higher education. The multi-dimensional, multi-scalar social and ecological crises facing communities across the globe alert us to the crucial role of higher education in contributing to sustainable and equitable transformation of and beyond our institutions.

UNESCO (Parr et al, 2022) calls for “higher education institutions and their stakeholders to systematically rethink their role in society and their key missions, and reflect on how they can serve as catalysts for a rapid, urgently needed and fair transition towards sustainability. The complexity of the issues at stake means that solutions should be part of a radical agenda that calls for new alliances and new incentives”.

As Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations explains, “we must work for solutions rooted in justice, with renewed urgency and solidarity”.

Higher education is not outside of complex geopolitical dynamics. These dynamics impact all dimensions of higher education; equity is not a separate issue but is part of the social fabric in which we create the conditions for our collective sustainability, flourishing and well-being.

We have engaged in an extensive process of reviewing our higher education system through the Australian Accord process. As Chair of the Accord, Professor Mary O’Kane asked a fundamental question during this process “if we can’t reform our own system than what can we do?” The final Accord report asks us to refresh our thinking in relation to bold, systematic reform.

We urgently require securely and comprehensively funded systems with visionary thinking that expands the view of the purpose of higher education. While calling on governments, policymakers and civil servants to recognise their role in creating such possibilities, universities and their leaders have a key role to play – those with the power to influence change must do everything in their power to create the conditions for equity, and thus for our sustainable futures.

We must pay attention to who participates in transformative processes and on what terms. This requires critical consideration of the insidious inequalities that are regularly ignored, silenced, and rendered invisible through a preoccupation with measurement as holding all the answers.

A key example is the way we continuously invoke the metaphor of a barrier, an overused terminology in educational policy and practice. This metaphor ignites our social imagination that the problem of equity is relatively simple to fix as long as we figure out how to measure it.

Barriers are tangible, concrete things that are observable and thus easy to quantify and measure. The idea that we can fix the problem of equity through measurement is so seductive that we then ignore the insidious inequalities that are rooted in the very foundations of higher education even as we seek to build equity within it. We lose sight of the ethical dimensions of what we do in the name of equity and how we do it.

A powerful way that insidious inequalities are sustained is through deficit imaginaries. This refers to the idea that equity interventions must correct the perceived deficiencies of individuals constructed through the lens of disadvantage. The problem is located in the bodies of those targeted by equity policy and practice, thus reproducing hierarchies between those granted the power and influence to construct and implement policy and those for whom policy is projected.

Dominant temporal structures privilege quick fix approaches that over-simplify rather than develop long-term commitments in which equitable and participatory processes and relations can be developed and sustained.

Through deficit imaginaries, particular aspirations and identities are privileged and valued. There is sometimes a slippage into a quasi-medical discourse that sets out to provide ‘treatment’ to those with perceived impoverished aspirations and identities, while ignoring the implications of who is seen to ‘know’ and who is seen to ‘lack’.

This is reflected in evaluation methodologies that foreground random control trials to measure the impact of the ‘treatment’ provided or withheld. Or evaluation narrowly framed to measure ‘what works’ while ignoring the systems of inequality and injustice that produce the conditions for inter-generational disadvantage.

Deficit imaginaries have led to a legacy of educational policy and practice committed to raising aspirations through outreach programs. The idea that historically under-represented people and communities lack aspiration is unacceptable and pathologising.

Equity can too easily become reduced to a set of crude interventions, focused on changing individuals constructed through disadvantage, with minimal attention to the historical, intergenerational and deeply entrenched multidimensional inequalities in which aspirations and identities are formed, validated and enabled.

The effects can be detrimental, widening inequalities rather than creating the social and institutional conditions for parity of participation. Indeed, conceptions of parity are too often one-dimensional, strongly framed by a quantitative conception only.

This reinforces deficit imaginaries by counting numbers of people within one-dimensional policy categorisations – driven by questions such as “how many students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds enrolled in higher education in a particular year?”

We lose sight of the root problem:

• What are the social and economic structures that reproduce the conditions in which there
  are growing inequalities that affect educational access and participation?
• How do these social and economic inequalities affect how different people, knowledge and
  forms of learning are unequally recognised, represented and valued in society and in higher
  education?
• What are the effects of these multidimensional inequalities on human and more-than-
  human flourishing and well-being?

In short, we need a reframing of notions of parity of participation to challenge deficit imaginaries. A social justice reimagining of parity of participation substantially deepens engagement with equity by examining the implications of who participates and on what terms. Nancy Fraser explains that "parity is not a matter of numbers. Rather, it is a qualitative condition, the condition of being a peer, of being on a par with others, of interacting with [others] on an equal footing…"

So what is to be done? How do we move away from deficit imaginaries, couched in one-dimensional approaches to parity of participation? How do we challenge insidious inequalities that are reproduced through inequitable educational systems? How do we move forward in solidarity to create the conditions for higher education to be mobilised as a force for equity and our collective, sustainable futures?

I propose a multidimensional framework for equity that offers vital insights to challenge inequalities. These dimensions, when held together, shift our focus from individual remediation and assimilation to the social, economic, cultural and representational inequalities that damage our system, our communities and ourselves.

Redistribution seeks to redress social and economic inequalities – the intergenerational maldistribution of educational opportunities, life chances and key resources. Access to quality resources and opportunities is imperative to full and meaningful participation in higher education and lifelong learning.

Recognition challenges the inequitable cultural value order that leads to status subordination through deficit imaginaries. This requires moving beyond tokenistic celebrations of diversity to recognise the knowledge, experiences and identities that students bring, which both enrich and transform local, institutional and sector-wide tertiary education communities.

Representation develops programs collaboratively with students and communities as peers, rather than recipients. It demands rigorous and ethically-oriented co-design and co-development with those who have been denied a voice in the development of higher education and its social contribution.

Human and more-than-human flourishing and well-being demands a broader conception of higher education beyond economic-centred notions and towards its broader contribution to generating collective, equitable, sustainable futures for us all. It recognises the commitments of students who see higher education not only as a pathway for their future well-being but also for the future well-being of others. It recognises the responsibility and contribution of universities to the local, regional and global communities they serve. It recognises our interdependency and the different knowledges, capabilities and values that constitute an equitable and inclusive higher education system.

Methodological rigour avoids collapsing research, evaluation, and programmatic development into instrumentalised methods and considers the ethics of what we do and how we do it. It emphasises participatory practice with a deep commitment to ongoing, dialogic cycles of critical reflection and critical action. It values the time required to do equity carefully, collaboratively, sustainably, and ethically.

This multidimensional framework underpins the UNESCO Chair in Equity, Social Justice and Higher Education based in the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education at the University of Newcastle. A key project of the UNESCO Chair team focuses on multidimensional inequalities and its manifestation in gender injustice and gender-based violence; what the United Nations calls the shadow pandemic.

Globally one in three women will experience gender-based violence (GBV) in their lifetime. In Australia one in four women have experienced violence by an intimate partner since the age of 15, but this rate is higher for women from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, women with disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, LGBTQI+ communities, and women living in rural and remote areas. GBV is estimated to cost Australia about $22 billion annually. These numbers are staggering and reveal that we have a long way to go to building equity.

Last year all levels of Australian government launched a national action plan to end gender-based violence. Just this past week Education Ministers published an action plan addressing gender-based violence in higher education.

These developments are immense in recognising the social epidemic that is devastating to our society. Now is the time to seize higher education’s crucial contribution in actively challenging injustice and its manifestation in GBV as part of its broader commitment to equity.

Although the profound, detrimental, and long-term effects of gender-based violence on all dimensions of personal and social health and well-being has been strongly articulated over recent years, the impact of experiences of GBV on higher education access and participation remains largely a silent issue.

To redress this, the UNESCO Chair team have conducted research with 430 student victim-survivors in the Newcastle region and have found that GBV profoundly undermines higher education equity. We found that:

• the majority of GBV experiences happened in students’ own or someone else’s private
  residence.
• on average students first experienced GBV at age 13.
• student victim-survivors aspire to use their university education to help other victim-
  survivors and to make a difference to their families, communities and society.

The students valued the opportunity to participate in higher education but this was countered by a profound sense of alienation, not belonging, unworthiness and isolation. Bertram and Crowley describe this as insidious trauma, which does harm to the soul and spirit. Insidious trauma is deepened by institutionalised misrecognition: this is the combined impact of stigmatisation with deficit imaginaries.

The silencing of gender-based violence as an issue of institutional significance reinforces a personal sense of not belonging articulated by many of our participants – here are some poignant examples.

“Why am I studying this degree? Like why? How could I be of any use to anyone?”
“You can’t get over this feeling of you’re not worthy, you don’t even deserve to be here.”
“The after-effects of abuse lowered my self confidence and esteem so that I felt I did not deserve
a better life.”
“My ex said I was too stupid and too dumb to go to uni. I believed him for a long time.”

(quotes from student participants)

Maldistribution was a major factor in undermining students’ capacity to flourish. Students suffered profound financial deprivation as well as restrictions on their freedom. Rigid policies such as compulsory attendance as well as the burden of large student debt exacerbated by severe disruption to their studies was a major theme emerging from the survey data. Students made important recommendations to the university on this basis, for example:

“After I experienced [domestic violence] I was homeless, living in my car and I did my first ever
final exams at university the day after sleeping in my car.”
“Access to consistent and quality psychological services would help.”
“Please excuse our attendance rates for compulsory tutorials. We are so often going through
wars at home that no-one knows about, attendance in the middle of one of those wars could
mean additional violence for us.”
“We carry such a heavy burden already, the ever-growing financial burden [of student debt] is
scary.”
“[Domestic violence] prevented me from being able to meet assessment deadlines. I was deeply
afraid that my partner would find the letters or emails and become violent. This resulted in a
huge [student] debt.”

(quotes from student participants)

The students’ insights teach us how redistribution, recognition and representation can be held together to guide transformation for equity. The students provided powerful recommendations to university leaders and policy-makers including:

• providing quality education for staff and students about GBV.
• building capacity and new forms of expertise to address and combat GBV.
• taking an explicit stance against all forms of injustice including GBV.
• ensuring costs of study are covered, safe accommodation is available and free healthcare
  (including trauma-informed counselling services) and legal services are available.
• creating flexible and responsive time structures and inclusive pedagogical, curricular
  assessment and support frameworks and practices.
• avoiding punishing students suffering coercive control and restrictions on their mobility.
• providing navigational support to ensure access to key support, services, resources,
  opportunities and pathways.
• exercising zero tolerance of stigmatisation.
• reforming policies that lead to excessive debt, withdrawal and poor educational profiles.

Through the collaboration taking place under the UNESCO Chair, which includes research, evaluation, new programs, student advocacy, relational navigation, and inter-agency collaboration, we are producing critical knowledge and action to mobilise HE in its capacity to contribute to gender justice, higher education equity and to challenge GBV. A key role is providing a platform for students to articulate their knowledge and insights to create collective action for social change, and to build capacity for new forms of expertise.

The UNESCO Chair team at the University of Newcastle is collaborating with student victim-survivors and community service agencies to build a gender justice hub, which aims to:

• produce new knowledge to understand the extent and nature of GBV among HE students.
• ensure the voices of victim-survivors inform an improved HE sector.
• produce an evidence-base with specialist community services to support increased resourcing that enables access to lifelong learning and higher education and capacity-building.
• develop models for partnership with HE students/future students, to support their
  educational journeys, life chances and to build collective capacity, knowledge and action.
• help improve HE policies, procedures and curriculum, preparing the next generation of
  professionals to understand the complexities of gender injustice and its manifestation in
  gender-based violence.
• challenge universities and other professional organisations to become change-drivers in the
  fight against GBV.
• recognise the knowledge, insight and capacity of students for societal and institutional
  transformation.

The gender-based violence project is one case study of many that illuminates how social, economic, cultural and representational injustices, when ignored, can sabotage our collective efforts to build equity.

Challenging ourselves to move from one-dimensional models to rigorous, multidimensional frameworks enables us to dismantle harmful and insidious deficit imaginaries. When insidious inequalities are ignored they unravel our institutional and personal efforts, investments and commitments to equity.

We need to urgently move towards solutions for higher education rooted in social and ecological justice by fostering a culture of solidarity and compassion. This means thinking differently about equity, carefully considering the key messages we communicate and holding ourselves accountable to communities navigating social, economic, cultural and representational inequalities.

The UNESCO Chair project I shared illuminates that students have high aspirations to contribute to society, including participating in meaningful paid work that benefits themselves and others.

Students and community partners are co-leaders with universities in processes of reframing the purpose of higher education, and of contributing valuable knowledge and wisdom from their experience and expertise.

We simply cannot contemplate a reformed system of higher education that puts equity at the centre without recognising the value of this body of knowledge.

The narrowing of higher education for job-ready, market-centric, commercialised purposes undermines our capacity to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities, promote gender equality, and build peace, justice and strong institutions, key sustainable development goals that centre equity and social justice.

Hyper individualism, entrenched as it is in a culture of competitiveness rather than collaboration, compassion and solidarity, is toxic for us all. Overlooking multidimensional inequalities is ultimately damaging for sustainable higher education, while doing harm to our students and to ourselves. If we ignore these social imperatives, we ignore our long-term, collective well-being.

I would like to end by paying special and heartfelt tribute to the participants, team members and community sector partners in the UNESCO Chair project I shared. I want to acknowledge the wisdom and knowledge they bring to processes of higher education transformation. Importantly, the UNESCO Chair scheme is not conceived of as the work of a lone scholar. Rather, UNESCO understands that transformation can only come through collective action, through cooperation, collaboration and meaningful parity of participation in the project of change. It is only together that we can systematically transform higher education for equity and sustainability.

References

Burke, PJ, Coffey, J, Parker, J, Hardacre, S, Cocuzzoli, F, Shaw, J & Haro, A, 2023. ‘It’s a lot of shame’: understanding the impact of gender-based violence on higher education access and participation, Teaching in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2243449.

Coffey, J, Burke, PJ, Hardacre, S, Parker, J, Cocuzzoli, F & Shaw, J, 2023. Students as victim-survivors: the enduring impacts of gender-based violence for students in higher education, Gender and Education, 35:6-7, 623-637, DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2023.2242879

Fraser, N. 2013. Fortunes of feminism: From state-managed capitalism to neoliberal crisis. London and New York: Verso Books.

Parr, A, Binagwaho, A, Stirling, A, Davies, A, Mbow, C, Hessen, DO, Nader, HB, Salmi, J, Burkins, MB, Ramakrishna, S, Serrano, S, Schmelkes, S, Shijun T and McCowan, T, 2022. Knowledge-driven actions: Transforming higher education for global sustainability. Paris: UNESCO.

Both the review and Education Minister Jason Clare strongly recommend extra funding and increased accessibility to tertiary study for students who are Indigenous, disabled or from low socio-economic areas.

These students often miss out, and therefore can't contribute to a workforce that is relying more and more heavily on workers with post-school qualifications.

Although the federal government hasn't agreed to any of the costly reforms, estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars over 25 years, questions about where the reform money would come from are being asked.

Once that has been decided, universities will have to know how to allocate the funds, the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) director Professor Shamit Saggar said.

"[Needs-based funding is] the number one thing universities struggle with, in terms of having the right resources and allocating resources for kids from disadvantaged, marginal backgrounds," Professor Saggar told Campus Review.

"If you give universities that funding to support these students, there's still that inherent problem of [it] being badly spent.

"Part of our work is to help straighten that out."

ACSES, formerly the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, has established a 'what works' approach to their three programs: data, research and policy, and trials and evaluation.

The trials and evaluations model aims to offer data, collected through randomised control trials, to all 39 universities, so they have access to best practice models when it comes to involving and supporting disadvantaged students.

The professor said, for the first time, the centre is doing in-the-field tests of around a dozen equity programs currently used in universities to analyse whether they're effective or not.

The soon-to-be-announced results of these trials will be able to inform university policies and programs to carry out the Accord's participation mission.

"That's why we call ourselves the What Works? centre, because the sector desperately needs to know what's working and what's not working," Professor Saggar said.

The trails will test how effective current university equity programs are, and hopes to identify a "secret sauce", or element, of the program that really drives participation.

ACSES will also launch an Equity Hub in March, where university staff and practitioners can gather to network and share ideas about accessibility and equity programs.

"Whilst we're getting ready for trials, before we produce the 'secret sauce', as it were, there's lots of small ingredients that can be exchanged across the table," the professor said.

"Traditionally, practitioners haven't had access to a lot of evaluation skills on the programmes they're involved in.

"The whole idea is for it to be a continuous source of expertise."

ACSES has six "strategies for future fairness": needs-based funding; equity programs; HELP-HECS updates; block funding; an Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC); and visionary university leadership.

The director said the recommendation for the government to install an ATEC would boost the program's efforts.

"Our work goes further if we're working with a proper ATEC in the future because it would be a buffer body between the sector and government," he said.

Programs that best support disadvantaged student cohorts, developed by ACSES, could be delivered through commission that would act as an authority body over the 39 independent universities.

Professor Saggar also said he could see ACSES working with a student ombudsman, another reform recommended in the Accord, to deliver better education and safety outcomes for students.

"An ombudsman shouldn't be complacent, just waiting for stuff to come through the front door," he said.

"It should also take the complaints it's received, as well as a soft intel, ... and report those back to the government, or the [possible] commission, or indeed, us."

ACSES' rebrand from the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education was announced on Monday. It came after a 2022 $20.5m funding injection over four years from Minister Clare.

"The predecessor body did fine work, but it didn't have a very strong national profile," the professor said.

"The message behind our rebrand to ACSES is very pointed. We have the solutions to help universities close their equity gaps.

"This is a golden opportunity for all 39 universities to raise their game."

Research findings and recommended programs will be announced by ACSES in the coming months.

The 47 recommendations would see students from disadvantaged backgrounds given more opportunity to go to university through 'needs-based funding', with an overarching aim to produce the workforce needed to fill our skills gap.

Jobs and Skills Australia has forecast that the industries that will grow exponentially in the next decade, such as healthcare and education, all require workers that hold a post-school qualification.

Education Minister Jason Clare was adamant that the key to generating these workers lies in giving every potential student, especially those from poor, regional or remote areas, a "crack" at university.

The ambitious reforms outlined in the report aim to increase the number of workers with a university degree or VET qualification to 80 per cent by 2050, compared to the current 60 per cent.

They would also see the number of 24-35 year olds with a bachelor's degree or higher increase to 55 per cent, from 45 per cent now.

To achieve those two goals, the number of Commonwealth supported university places would need to double by 2050, from 860,000 in 2022 to 1.8m, the report recommended.

Participation targets are recommended to increase the proportion of university students from underrepresented backgrounds by 2035.

The aim is to grow First Nations students from 2.1 per cent to 3.3 per cent, students from low SES from 17 per cent to 20.2 per cent, and rural regional and remote students from 19.8 per cent to 24 per cent.

Financial assistance

Key financial issues driving prospective students away from university study should be overhauled, says the report, such as the Job Ready Graduates program introduced under the Morrison government, which attempted to push students towards in-demand degrees such as teaching and nursing by lowering its fees whilst increasing the cost of arts and humanities studies.

Three years after the scheme was introduced, there are no significant numbers showing the fee reduction convinced more students to enrol in the cheaper degrees.

The report also recommends reforms to HECS repayments, such as easing repayments during periods of high-inflation, and reducing the amount of initial repayments when ex-students' salaries first hit the loan repayment threshold.

Students paying off their university fees shouldn't have their home loan eligibility tarnished by HECS, according to the report.

Existing HECS-HELP repayments are due to increase in June, but Labor has said they won't commit to any of the report's recommendations yet.

Other recommendations included payment for students when they are doing compulsory work placement requirements.

Currently these placements are the source of stress and financial strain and cause many students to drop out or lose their permanent jobs.

Another recommendation to support those who aspire to attend university was to increase the number of fee-free places in preparation courses.

Higher income support is also recommended for those in need.

A more seamless education system

The report also recommended the setting up of a new authority body, the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, to oversee universities and eventually the entire tertiary education sector, including vocational education.

It recommended the government move forward with the National Skills Passport, a digital qualification record-keeping platform, and a National Student Ombudsman, which would improve processes that handle wellbeing cases like sexual assault and harassment.

Microcredentials, short courses and other alternative education types would also be pushed to up- and re- skill students more quickly.

Education Minister Jason Clare strongly backs increasing the number of students at university from low-socio economic backgrounds, regional and remote areas, and First Nations peoples.

“The only way that we’re going to have enough people with the skills we need to build the businesses and the jobs in the next few decades is if people from poor backgrounds, the outer suburbs and from the regions, get a crack at university,” the minister told The Australian.

What does the sector say?

Peak bodies have welcomed the report's recommendations, although the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA), that said the review was incomplete.

"The significance of the Australian Universities Accord Final Report is in its very nature, it is institution-centric and doesn’t put students at the heart of the higher education sector," said ITECA chief executive Troy Williams.

"The report sets out some ambitious reforms, but many students will be left behind as the policy options are not provider-agnostic.

"The report’s focus on public institutions offers little for students who want to achieve their life and career goals as a result of studying with an independent higher education provider," Mr Williams said.

Mr Williams said the recommendation that would see Commonwealth support for TAFE students disregards the 10 per cent of the 1.6m total higher education students who choose to study at an independent institution.

Universities Australia chair David Lloyd welcomed the reforms and called on the government to quickly get to work implementing them.

"We encourage government to quickly establish the Implementation Advisory Committee so we can prioritise the rollout of reforms while providing universities with policy and funding certainty," Professor Lloyd said.

"It’s clear the panel has considered multigenerational reforms that require commitment from successive governments, and we urge the serving and all future governments to stay the course."

The total reforms will take tens of billions of dollars and decades to implement, and Labor has said it won't commit to any recommendations just yet.

Student surveys found an average of 275 students experience sexual assault on campus every week, and don't report it because they don't know how.

Sexual violence on campus researcher Dr Allison Henry spoke to Campus Review to discuss how universities got to this point, and shared the findings of her recent PhD thesis, which investigated regulatory responses to sexual violence on campus.

Her studies revealed the lack of action from regulatory bodies like the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), the effect of fluctuating political interest from different education ministers and federal governments, an absence of independent investigation into reporting processes, and the "performative" nature of anti-sexual violence university's campaigns.

The draft Action Plan addressing gender-based violence in higher education, along with the Universities Accord Final Report, is due this month.

Campus Review spoke to Dr Alison Henry, who wrote her PhD on regulatory responses to sexual assault and sexual harassment in Australian University settings and was a member of the Department of Education's gender-based violence stakeholder reference group, about what we can expect to see in them.

Q: Talk to me a little bit about the draft action plan. It was developed to change the situation through recommendations such as a student ombudsman and a national code to improve transparency and accountability. Are these going to deliver the change that we need to see?

A: Part of the draft action plan is a national higher education code to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.

What this will do is build on what we call the 'threshold standards' now, which are wellbeing and safety standards that TEQSA administers, but it will provide much greater detail and be specifically focused on gender-based violence.

The new code will effectively provide a blueprint for universities about what the expectations are, how they talk about sexual violence, [and] how they respond to sexual violence.

It'll provide a standard set of expectations so students, no matter which university they go to or which campus they're at, will have a standard consistent set of expectations around how an incident of sexual violence will be dealt with.

The new [national] code is proposed as part of the action plan, and the current plan is that oversight will be by a new unit in the Department of Education.

That will also mean that this issue's being taken away from TEQSA.

TEQSA will continue to exist doing its other work, but effectively the Department of Education's unit will oversight the implementation of the new code – that's a really important new page for students and student activists, who have really lost confidence in TEQSA.

What the student ombudsman would do, the national student ombudsman that's been proposed in the action plan, [is] provide a streamlined complaints process for students.

Once they've exhausted their processes at their institution, at their university – and if they're unhappy with the outcome at their university – they've got another body to go to and say, "Hey look, I really didn't like the way this happened," or "it "this took so long", or "they were really inappropriate about the questions they were asking". All of those sorts of things are the issues that come up.

The student ombudsman will provide a national student complaints process that will mean that all the students know where to go. Because at the moment, students don't know where to go to get help.

Q: So, it was really focused on, 'what can we do on the ground to help the students who are actually experiencing this'?

A: Yes, I think it's really looking at how can we protect and support students who have experienced gender-based violence, but it's also looking at how we can prevent it in the future.

There's a bunch of different mechanisms underneath the action plan. I think there's seven or eight action items, and there's different elements of the action plan that speak to different parts of the problem.

According to TEQSA, no university has ever had a problem in any of the investigations that they've looked at.

When I was doing my thesis, there was probably more than 60 of those sorts of investigations over the period I was looking at it. And not once did they find there was a problem.

And that included five occasions when universities themselves had reported to TEQSA and said, "We think there's a problem." And TEQSA said, "No, we think you're fine," so there's been a real problem there in terms of an external complaints mechanism.

Q: What key things are you looking for in the Accord report that will make a real difference? What would you like to see come out of that?

A: Well, I think the Accord report really, in the space of sexual violence, the interim report was really fantastic.

The Accord panel, when we first met with them, had all read the submissions – all were completely across the issue, and all really keen to try and make a difference in this space. And that was fantastic.

What came out in the interim report has actually given the impetus for what became the working group and what has become the draft action plan.

We are not really sure whether there'll be anything else that will come out that will be in the sexual violence space. My understanding is the Department of Education and the government are moving forward with a draft action plan as a separate process, but there may be other things that come out for the Accord. We don't really know. Everyone's waiting for the report to arrive.

This Q&A is a an edited excerpt from a Campus Podcast episode. Listen to the full podcast here.