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.

Live from the foyer of the Universities Australia (UA) Solutions Summit in Canberra, this special episode shares the immediate reactions of tertiary education leaders to the Universities Accord final report.

Featured in this episode are vice-chancellors Deb Terry from the University of Queensland, Renee Leon from Charles Sturt University, Chris Moran from the University of New England, Clare Pollock from Western Sydney University, Simon Biggs from James Cook University, Theo Farrell from La Trobe University and Alex Zelinsky from the University of Newcastle.

Host Martin Betts from HEDx also interviews sector leaders including chief executive of UA Luke Sheehy (pictured), UA former chair John Dewar, higher education commentator Andrew Norton, and others.

The solutions summit ran over two days on February 27 and 28.

The 2021 National Student Safety Survey (NSSS) commissioned by peak body Universities Australia (UA) found that since starting their studies, one in 20 students had been sexually assaulted and one in six students had been sexually harassed in a university context.

Until this week, Australian governments had been largely content to leave the issue to the self-regulating university sector to manage.

But last Wednesday the Commonwealth Department of Education released a draft action plan addressing gender-based violence in higher education.

Following a meeting of education ministers from around the country Tuesday, the plan has been released for further consultation and detailed design work.

The draft action plan has been developed in coordination with victim-survivor advocates, student leaders, staff representatives, subject matter experts and university and student accommodation provider representatives.

If implemented as a full package of measures as intended, the action plan will be game-changing for Australia’s university sector, dramatically increasing support for student survivors and demanding greater institutional accountability and transparency.

Student safety advocates have welcomed the draft action plan, saying it “has the potential to be transformative”.

The plan proposes several promising accountability and transparency measures.

Firstly, as has been recently flagged in the media, a new National Student Ombudsman aimed at ensuring students have access to an effective, trauma-informed complaints mechanism.

This new complaints pathway responds to the strident criticism of the national higher education regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), which last month admitted that it had not investigated any of the 39 complaints against university handling of sexual violence matters that it had received since 2017.

A new National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence –  detailing requirements around a range of issues including critical incident management, provision of support to students and whole-of-institution data collection and transparent reporting – will provide a consistent framework for universities and residential colleges.

The establishment of a new expert unit in the Department of Education, to lead implementation of the new National Code and undertake targeted compliance activities, would strengthen provider accountability and effectively remove these responsibilities from TEQSA, which has  been criticised for its inadequate regulatory efforts in this area.

If adopted, the introduction of robust requirements around increased data transparency and scrutiny, together with annual reporting by higher education providers (through the Commonwealth Minister of Education to the federal Parliament) will be critical.

To date it has been extremely difficult to identify and assess performance across the sector, with research undertaken earlier this year revealing that three-quarters of Australia’s universities were not reporting sexual violence on campus despite their promises to be transparent.

The draft action plan also includes a pledge to “enhance the oversight, standards and accountability of student accommodation providers” regarding their gender-based violence prevention and response efforts, noting that consultation needs to be undertaken with the sector on this point.

The need for greater work here reflects the complex legislative and governance arrangements underpinning Australia’s student accommodation providers.

The more than 220 residential colleges associated with Australian universities include university-owned or administered colleges, university-affiliated institutions, and private entities including both non-profit organisations and commercial businesses, such as UniLodge and Urbanest.

These providers operate under a bewildering array of governance and operational arrangements and are currently subject to substantially less regulatory oversight than comparable accommodation settings, such as boarding houses and aged care facilities.

Many also operate independently of the authority of the universities with which they are associated.

Residential colleges have been identified as a particular site of concern for sexual violence in two national student safety surveys and have been the subject of regular media attention.

Many maintain enduring connections with their alumni communities, some of whom have been vocal in suppressing earlier attempts to tackle college culture, so it is commendable that governments have flagged their intention to finally tackle this difficult but neglected area of regulation.

Consultation on the draft action plan is open until the end of January. For now, it provides an important signal that Australian governments have serious expectations around universities and residential colleges strengthening their responses to gender-based violence.

That government attention is long-overdue.

Dr Allison Henry is a Research Fellow and Associate with the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW. She completed her PhD on 'Regulatory responses to sexual assault and sexual harassment in Australian university settings’ in May 2023.  Dr Henry was a member of the Commonwealth Department of Education's Gender-based Violence Stakeholder Reference Group.

Universities Australia (UA) released its Charter on sexual harm last week with support from the University Chancellors Council.

UA Chair Professor David Lloyd said the Charter reflects each university’s commitment to combatting the “major societal problem” of sexual violence on campus with “rates in the community [that] remain unacceptably high.”

“We need to do more to combat the scourge – universities, governments, schools and businesses all working together because, collectively, we can do better by the people in our communities,” Professor Lloyd said.

“This Charter will drive new and improved measures to build on the many initiatives already in place at organisations across the nation.”

Safety advocates Fair Agenda, End Rape On Campus (EROC), The STOP Campaign and the National Union of Students released a joint statement on Twitter denouncing the UA Charter.

“Once again, Universities Australia and its member universities have decided amongst themselves that they don’t to listen to experts on the issue of sexual violence in our university communities,” the statement said.

The advocate organisations have been working with the federal government’s gender-based violence working group to advise on actions to improve student safety on campus.

“We are gobsmacked that universities have evidently been running a unilateral parallel process, seemingly without consultation with key student representatives or victim-survivor advocates,” the statement said.

“We welcome any legitimate, substantive efforts to address sexual assault and sexual harassment in our universities.

“But let's be clear, this Universities Australia Charter on Sexual Harm appears to be entirely about attempting to protect university reputations and a cynical and belated PR campaign by Australia’s universities to look like they are taking action on the crisis of campus sexual violence before Education Ministers meet next week.”

Outgoing UA Chief Executive Catriona Jackson has defended the body’s handling of the issue, saying universities can’t be responsible for dealing with it alone.

“As a sector, we have not shied away from dealing with sexual harm – we are not sitting still in the face of this major societal issue,” Ms Jackson said.

“Our commitment to do more to support and protect individuals shows the seriousness with which universities are treating this scourge and our commitment to address it.

“We need other organisations to come on board with us – we can’t do it alone.

“We call on all sectors – governments, schools, businesses, workplaces and the media – to commit to this Charter so that, collectively, we can work to change our society for the better.”

Victim-survivor advocate and founder of EROC Australia Sharna Bremner lambasted UA and the Charter, saying, “It looks like they asked ChatGPT to pull together something based on nothing more than their previous media releases.”

UA has received intense scrutiny this year for not doing enough to protect students and staff from sexual violence on campus.

The peak body came under fire for accepting $1.5m taxpayer funding to create a sexual consent campaign that never eventuated.

The Charter will no doubt continue to be a topic of discussion as the Universities Accord panel prepares to deliver its final report ahead of the new year.

UA is the peak body representing Australian universities in lobbying government, communicating to the public, and co-ordinating collective university activities.

Ms Jackson announced her resignation last week, saying it was “time to hand the baton on”, having led UA through pandemic border closures, an Accord process and Senate hearings proving critical of the group.

The Senate committee report criticised UA's handling of the ‘Respect at Uni’ week issue after UA confirmed the event to a Senate inquiry and in a statement later deleted from their website.

The new statement had followed UA chair Professor David Lloyd’s National Press Club appearance on August 9, during which he said that each university is capable of delivering their own programs and that the Respect at Uni week had not been agreed to by the Vice-Chancellors.

Ms Jackson apologised to Vice Chancellors in a closed-door meeting for telling the Senate inquiry that the event would go ahead without having agreement or sign-off from the institutions.

The promised consent campaign

UA backtracked on the event despite receiving more than $1m in taxpayer funding to deliver a nationwide consent campaign at university campuses.

A 46-page guide on good practice replaced the promised campaign; an accompanying community of practice workshops also never eventuated. 

UA extended Ms Jackson’s contract last year but did not renew it, and it has faced an uphill battle defending its inaction in holding universities accountable for increasing incidents of sexual violence on campus.

Ms Jackson’s future in the role became a topic of public debate after a letter from Deakin University VC Iain Martin to the UA board was leaked to the ABC.

A thankless task

Professor Lloyd reflected on Catriona’s time in the role, saying, “It is rarely an easy task, and often a thankless one, but Catriona has performed with diligence and determination.”

“She has driven our central involvement in the Australian Universities Accord – a process she will see out as chief executive and one through which she is lobbying fiercely for the policies and funding settings that will support a thriving, diverse and inclusive higher education sector,” Professor Lloyd said.

Ms Jackson leaves the role effective December 22; UA has confirmed it will commence an “extensive search process for new chief executive.”

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) released the results of its 2023 survey on sexual harassment, sexism, and gender-based bias in higher education on October 12.

Almost a third of the 2,000 survey respondents reported personal experiences of sexual harassment, up from 19 per cent in 2018.

NTEU chief Dr Alison Barnes said she was disappointed and alarmed by the survey results.

“The higher education sector has clearly not made progress since our 2018 survey," Dr Barnes said.

"Higher education staff are being subjected to shocking levels of harassment and discrimination."

The Union is calling for regulatory changes that include transparent reporting of sexual harassment and assault annually.

The survey results come after Universities Australia (UA), the peak body representing Australian universities, told the recent Senate inquiry that the proposed student support policy would just create more paperwork for staff.

“This duplication in reporting and the necessity to rework existing student support policies to fit the suggested compliance measures of the guidelines will create undue administrative burden, rerouting university staff and resources away from the important work of supporting students,” A UA spokesperson said.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has thrown his support behind an independent ombudsman, establishing a working group to address university management of sexual assault incidents in a campus setting.

Most NTEU survey respondents who had personally experienced harassment were women, with a majority of perpetrators being co-workers (41 per cent) followed by managers (34 per cent).

Respondents said they were aware of sexual harassment policies, but most (46 per cent) chose not to make a formal complaint.

“Most don’t report sexual harassment because of institutional cultures that ignore, minimise or even target victims of sexual harassment,” Dr Barnes said.

Of the 13 per cent of respondents who made a formal complaint after experiencing harassment, 52 per cent were encouraged to drop their complaint, and 44 per cent faced negative consequences.

“As a result, perpetrators freely continue to commit acts of sexual harassment and sexual assault,” Dr Barnes said.

"The evidence shows a dire need for change. It’s outrageous that so many of these survey results are actually worse than they were five years ago.”

The Legal and Constitutional Affairs Reference Committee (‘the committee’) released its report on Wednesday, including 17 recommendations requiring urgent response from the federal government.

The Senate inquiry held public hearings in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra throughout July, and the committee received 79 submissions.

The committee was critical of the higher education sector’s peak body and regulatory agency for further traumatising victims with its reporting processes and lack of accountability.

The report calls for sweeping changes to consent education and law reform across jurisdictions, including how the justice system treats victim-survivors. 

The committee has urged the federal government to review and respond to its recommendations within the next six months.

Inconsistent sexual consent laws across jurisdictions

Every week, an average of 275 students experience assault in university settings, according to the 2021 National Student Safety Survey (NSSS). 

Australian criminal law currently lacks a consistent national approach to how sexual assault is defined and legislated, making it challenging for one body to regulate all universities across each state and territory.

Sexual assault falls under an umbrella category of ‘sexual violence’ and can include physical and technology-facilitated acts.

Universities Australia and TEQSA receive strong criticism

The committee’s report criticised Universities Australia (UA), the peak body for the higher education sector, for backtracking on a consent campaign it received $1.1m in taxpayer funding to deliver. 

"This ramshackle process and inferior result should be an embarrassment to the university sector," it said.

The report recommended that UA conduct a second NSSS survey, making results publicly available by 2025, and to continue the survey on an ongoing basis every three years.

UA chief Catriona Jackson welcomed the report on Thursday saying members “have an unwavering commitment to combat this scourge.”

“Universities Australia, on behalf of the sector, will also advance an appropriately redesigned survey next year. This will build on the two previous surveys conducted in 2016 and 2021,”Ms Jackson said.

“As a sector, we are continuing to confront this very serious issue and that is what we will continue to do because that is what our students and staff deserve.”

The committee also criticised the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), stating it cannot be trusted to improve student safety, and recommended that the federal government commission an independent review of the regulatory agency.

The committee said on TEQSA, "The regulator has continually failed to exercise the full breadth of its powers to hold universities accountable for their woeful responses."

Advocate organisations End Rape On Campus (EROC) and Fair Agenda issued a joint response to the report, stating they were “thrilled to hear” about the independent review of TEQSA.

“TEQSA has failed to deliver the accountability or change needed in this area.”

“It is our analysis that TEQSA is not currently equipped to do what’s needed to address sexual violence at universities – from a mandate capacity or expertise perspective.”

Queensland senator Larissa Waters condemned the regulator, stating it is inadequate and unable to hold universities accountable. 

"Thousands of students … are facing utterly preventable sexual assault and rape on campus, our universities should be places of learning, not rape factories," Ms Waters said.

A spokesperson for TEQSA told Campus Review, “We recognise there is much more work to be done. Effective responses to these risks to students will require sustained and strong leadership in higher education institutions and evidence-based programs to prevent and respond to sexual harm.”

A national independent task force

The committee made an urgent and unanimous recommendation that the federal government establish an independent task force to hold universities accountable for sexual violence on campus.

The committee said of the university sector, "Numerous students have been irreparably, needlessly and inexcusably harmed, including (shamefully) through the response of universities."

“Current processes for reporting sexual violence in a university setting are re-traumatising students – particularly those living in residential halls,” STOP Campaign founder and director Camille Schloeffel told Campus Review.

Queensland senator and committee chair Paul Scarr said that evidence shows the sector cannot be trusted to improve its response, and an independent taskforce with “effective powers” would be the “strong intervention” needed.

Education Minister Jason Clare has not yet confirmed whether the government’s 2019 election campaign promise to establish an independent task force will go ahead.

The committee took a strong stance on Minister Clare’s working group, which was set up to investigate sexual violence on campus, stating that "The committee understands that a working group will be convened to advise the education ministers … the time for 'working groups' has passed."

“The task force would ideally have the power to regulate and implement sanctions against universities if needed to ensure transparent reporting and effective prevention and responses to sexual violence on campus,” EROC Australia founder Sharna Bremner told Campus Review. 

Resources for victim-survivors

The committee has recommended that state and territory governments develop and deliver “education and awareness” materials informing victim-survivors how a formal complaint would be reviewed and acted on.

According to the report, such materials should complement existing pilot projects and initiatives and be developed based on ongoing research funded by the federal government into the prevalence of sexual violence in Australia and the impact of responses to it.

The Australian Universities Accord will consider the Senate inquiry and subsequent report as it seeks to implement systemic change across the higher education sector.

The Accord released its interim report in July and will deliver its final report in December.

In early February, the Chinese government announced that over 40,000 students will need to back to Australia for on-campus study to have their qualifications recognised.

The announcement came as 40,000 international students from across 144 countries prepare to attend in-person as the February semester resumes.

Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson said universities are well prepared for the big return.

"There are issues for universities to consider in the way they care for students, the way they bring them back into that on-campus experience," Ms Jackson said.

"But the overwhelming feeling is one of incredible enthusiasm to get back onto campus, back into the classroom, back into seminars, tutorials and into the library with your friends."

Ms Jackson said the higher education sector needs to invest in keeping international students in Australia after their studies to help fill nationwide skills shortages.

"Only 16% of [international] students stay. We have a job of work to do to ensure that more of them stay and feel welcome to stay," she said.

Join Campus Review in a conversation with Ms Jackson.

Let's discuss China's online study ban, what has been the general reaction from universities around that announcement?

We were pleased to see the announcement. Universities always expected that the alterations would revert to the way they were before Covid-19. It works in a continuum with China's opening up.

In the end, it encourages students to get back to Australia, and that's a good thing.

Do you think that university are adequately prepared for such a volume of students to arrive?

University has been preparing for the return of students from 144 countries around the world for a considerable period.

It is absolutely fair to say that we were a little surprised, that the announcement was quite quick and that semester one was the date rather than semester two. But we've been preparing for the return of students, and universities are very pleased to see them come back.

Also, we need to be keeping in mind that 60,000 of the hundred thousand outstanding Chinese students had already come back.

Out of the remaining 40,000, most of those students have visas already, and many of those students are postgraduate. It's not as though they've all got to be here with their lunch bag in hand, on the very first day.

In what ways will the return of international students benefit Australia's higher education sector?

International students and the domestic students have been waiting for this day for a considerable period all through Covid 19.

The one very strong message we heard from students everywhere in China, in India, in Nepal, in Brunswick, in Bundaberg, was the thing they wanted the most was to be back in the classroom, next to their friends and talking face-to-face with teachers, lecturers and and fellow students.

This is a great thing for the morale on campus is a great thing for the nature of a learning.

We learned a huge amount through Covid 19. The offerings online, the hybrid offerings now are richer and more learning informed than they were before.

Certainly there'll be changes in practise, but absolutely overjoyed to see those students return both from Australia back to the classroom and from overseas.

Let's not forget that overseas students also make a substantial con contribution to Australia's bottom line.

What used to be a 40 billion industry was slash to this 22 billion under gdp at the height of Covid. We're expecting export figures out in the next couple of days which will give us an indication of where that's moved to.

It'll certainly be above 22 billion and back closer to that 40 billion figure, remembering that makes us the biggest services export and right up there with the one or two or three biggest exports across the entire Australian economy.

One thing Covid has taught us is that predictions are really quite complicated. It'll be somewhere between those, those two figures. Certainly it'll be an improvement.

What are some of the challenges universities can expect on and off campus in the next couple of months?

I wouldn't describe them as challenges to be completely honest, obviously shifting back to what had been a completely standard routine before there may be a few little things to iron out but universities have been preparing for this day for a long time.

We know that accommodation may be a bit tight in some of the urban centres, but things seem to have calmed down there a bit, and at the start of every year there is always stress on accommodations.

We always do everything we can to make sure students coming from quite different countries around the world feel as welcome as we can possibly make them.

Domestic students will also be coming back out of the sort of isolation that covid imposed upon on many people here and abroad.

Obviously, there are issues for universities to consider in the way they care for students, the way they bring them back into that on-campus experience.

But the overwhelming feeling is one of incredible enthusiasm to get back onto campus, back into the classroom, back into seminars, tutorials and into the library with your friends.

There's been a lot of discussion lately around lack of student accommodation. Do you think that universities need to focus on building more infrastructure?

I don't know that I'd say accommodations are filled for everything. The private sector has genuinely stood up and made a whole bunch of additional beds available.

Universities make very careful decisions about building accommodation.

Every year they do everything they can to make sure that there is a room, a bed, a place for university students to stay, especially when they come from either regional Australia or when they come from overseas.

I remember back when I worked at a university, the fluctuations mean that sometimes you need to make hotels available and find all sorts of alternatives.

The thing that universities are doing is making sure students are aware of all the options. Making sure they have the best po possible opportunity of getting the best possible spot.

All sorts of schemes that are forced on campus to try and make sure students have somewhere to live that is safe and reasonably close to where they're studying.

I wouldn't describe the, the situation as a crisis. I'd just describe it as something we're adapting to as well as we can and the market is adapting to as well as it can.

You've recently published a piece in the Australian where you mentioned that only 28% of international students use their post study work rights in Australia, with only 16% become permanent resident and more needs to be done to retain them.

What can be done to better retain international students after they graduate?

We think there is a real opportunity for Australia in keeping those graduated students who are highly skilled.

As you said, only 16% of those students stay. We have a job of work to do to ensure that more of them stay and feel absolutely welcome to stay. We've made very clear suggestions in our submission to the migration review.

The migration review is aimed at ironing out some of the lumpy, inconsistent silly bits of the system that have just happened because it's sort of been built up piece by piece over time.

We've been very pleased to see that the relevant minister Claire O'Neill has been open to pushing for changes in the migration system to make sure we are able to retain more of those highly skilled students.

There are changes you can make around the number of visa classes and the way the application operate.

There are all sorts of things that can be done just on a practical operational level to make students able to get into their chosen profession quicker when they finish their degree such clearer paperwork at the very start of their degree which is an internally contradictory and somewhat discouraging about their prospect of saying in Australia.

All of this has been outlined in our submissions of the migration review, and we're looking forward to the final report, which I understand is coming soon.

Do you think that since Covid-19, the way universities view international students has changed?

I think the Australian University system has always seen international students for the full value they contribute, that is extraordinary cultural value, soft diplomatic value and value in our region.

When Australian universities made the decision to open their doors to international students 50, 60 years ago it was part of a really broad scheme to play the best possible role we can in the region we live in, to take real responsibility for assisting countries, to build governance systems that are robust, to do all sorts of things that are in their interests and our interests.

And that's how we've continued to build that system.

I think Covid-19 made us all think about an awful lot of things. I think the Australian public became more aware of the value of international students, even though a survey we conducted indicated that the Australian public genuinely understand the value international students contribute.

International students the contribution to the economy is 250,000 jobs and counting, and the work they do here and the opportunities they offer to Australian students when they sit next to them in class.

So that cross fertilisation of ideas, those networks that are built and then then flow on into careers, I think those things were clearer and more highly valued during Covid.

I think we knew international students were there before. They might have just come to the fall a little bit during the pandemic.

Jason Clare announced an independent review into ARC governance during his first address as education minister on Wednesday.

During his speech, titled "Reset, Rebuild, and Reform", Clare vowed to deliver all future ARC grants within a pre-determined timeframe as part of a new "rigorous" and "transparent" process.

"The delays and the political interference in the way competitive grants operate need to end," he told the annual Universities Australia conference.

"It damages our international reputation. It also makes it harder for you to recruit and retain staff.  

"It’s my job to make sure the Australian Research Council has competent leadership and is functioning well."

The review follows recommendations from a Senate committee in March, which examined the backlash surrounding former education minister Stuart Robert’s decision to scrap six ARC humanities projects late last year.

The rejection came after researchers were kept waiting until the end of December to hear the outcomes for the 2022 funding round.

Peak bodies Universities Australia and the Group of Eight, along with dozens of individual academics and institutions, have long called for the delays and veto powers to be removed.

During a March Senate hearing, UA president Catriona Jackson said delays in decisions were "a matter of profound concern".

"An orderly system in which there are predictable timelines [...] is not just a matter of convenience for researchers; it's a fundamental matter relating directly to how they earn their living and how they can progress with their research," Jackson said.

In his speech, Clare vowed to appoint a "small number of eminent Australians" to lead Labor's promised Australian Universities Accord.

The group will operate as a bipartisan partnership between universities, government, unions, students and businesses, to build consensus on higher education reform.

Clare also pledged to increase university access for disadvantaged students.

The minister announced $20.5 million over four years to expand the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, based in Curtin University.

Universities must 'try harder' on wage theft: La Trobe vice-chancellor

Universities Australia chair Professor John Dewar used his keynote speech to call for more funding towards research and development.

He also hinted towards allegations of systemic wage theft occurring across the university sector.

"In recent times, some universities have failed to pay their casual staff properly – something that clearly should not have happened and which all universities must address as a matter of urgency," Dewar said.

"We can do better."

According to Dewar, overall research and development spending, as a proportion of GDP, declined from 2.25 per cent in 2008-09 to 1.79 per cent in 2020.

Figures from the National Skills Commission show that a million new jobs are going to be created in Australia over the next five years.

More than half of these jobs, Dewar said, will require a bachelor’s degree or higher, and more than nine out of 10 will need some form of post-school education.

"To maintain the supply of graduates at the level Australia needs, we estimate that the number of university places will need to grow by a total of 46,000 to 2027," Dewar said.

"We are pleased that the Albanese government has committed to an extra 20,000 places in the next few years, but this is a one-off, we need a longer-term solution."

In 2021, around 31 per cent of people in Australia aged between 15 and 74 had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Millennials have now become the most educated generation, with 40 per cent of people aged 25 to 34 having a bachelor’s degree or above.

As Australia’s population and demand for higher education increase, the university system will be short around 19,000 places by 2027, Dewar warned.

"We need to ensure that supply of university places keeps up. We can’t let these young people down and rob them of their aspirations," he said.

"Give universities the tools we need, and we will help Australia do the job."

This means for every $1 invested in the research sector, $5 would be returned to the economy, the peak body says.

Before the pandemic, Australian universities employed 260,000 people and contributed $41 billion to the economy. 

In order to face the challenges created by Covid-19, job losses and ongoing cuts to funding, Universities Australia will be submitting a report to the Productivity Commission outlining the need for a better research funding model.

Currently Australia’s tertiary research investments are falling behind international competitors, not even reaching the OECD average. 

As stated in the peak body submission, “for every one per cent increase in R&D, Australia’s productivity rises by 0.13% points”. 

According to Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson, every part of society will benefit from an increase of productivity. 

“University graduates and researchers continue to tackle the biggest challenges, from developing new technologies and industries to responding to crises such as global pandemics and climate change,” said Jackson.

“Universities are helping build the workforce of tomorrow, generating the bright ideas we’ll need and powering businesses to innovate and thrive.”

Jackson also believes that one way to increase productivity in Australia is through collaboration between universities and industry sectors. 

“A shift in public support for business research and innovation – towards direct support and away from tax concessions – can better provide the incentives for businesses to do research and foster industry-university partnerships.”

The submission also encourages the creation of a partnership with community-based health services. This would provide students with a place to learn and complete their practical experience as well as help the staffing shortages in aged care, primary and disability care.

Universities Australia also highlights the need to provide adequate funding to universities to accommodate the rapid growth of graduates that will be choosing to attend tertiary institutions from 2024.

More than 600,000 new jobs will require a bachelor degree or higher by 2026 according to the predictions of the National Skills Commission.

“Australia’s enviable economic growth, low unemployment and high living standards depend largely on improving productivity, but our productivity growth has slowed,” said Jackson.

The submission also advocates for uncapped places to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as well as a time-limited grant program, higher education loan program and a reduction of the red tape burden on universities.

The submission will be reviewed by the Productivity Commission over the coming months.