FED: Labor wants more poor students attending university by 2020
By Julian Drape09 Mar 2009 1:14 PM
Subject: FED: Labor wants more poor students attending university by 2020 FED: Labor wants more poor students attending university by 2020
CANBERRA, March 9 AAP - The federal government has vowed to enrol an additional 55,000 students from disadvantaged backgrounds in Australian universities by 2020.
Education Minister Julia Gillard says it makes moral and economic sense to have more indigenous, rural and poor students completing undergraduate degrees.
"This is, of course, an important moral issue .... but it's also an economic issue," Ms Gillard told a higher education conference in Sydney.
"Without greater equity in our higher education system, Australia simply can't obtain the high-level knowledge and skills we need to compete with the most successful economies of the world."
Labor wants 20 per cent of undergraduate enrolments to be low socio-economic background students by 2020.
The current level is 16 per cent, or nearly 92,000 students.
"The additional low SES (social economic status) enrolments in 2020 required to meet our goal is approximately 55,000," Ms Gillard said.
"From those numbers you can see the scale of the task ahead."
Students from poorer backgrounds are currently one-third as likely to attend university as those from wealthy families.
The government has already committed funds to outreach and aspiration raising programs across the country, while some universities are offering bonus entry points in an effort to attract poorer students.
But the key, Ms Gillard said, was to improve the nation's schools and Year 12 completion rates.
And that requires governments to act.
"Universities will say they can only make a difference to low SES enrolment if governments around the country are prepared to play their part and schools are prepared to rise to the challenge," she said.
"I welcome and want to institutionalise that pressure from universities on to government."
The ambitious 20 per cent target is part the Rudd government's response to December's Bradley review into higher education.
Last week, the education minister set another target of having 40 per cent of Australians aged 25 to 34 holding a bachelor degree by 2025, up from 32 per cent today.
She also promised to uncap students places from 2012, and set up a national regulatory agency to oversee quality under the deregulated system.
A separate body will build links between universities and vocational training.
In the last few days, Ms Gillard has indicated Labor will act on some of Professor Denise Bradley's key recommendations, but she's refused to talk dollars until May's budget.
The Bradley review suggested the commonwealth needed to boost funding by $6.5 billion over the next four years to stop Australian falling further behind its international competitors.
The National Union of Students has congratulated Labor on its targets but says students need certainty on greater income support.
"The current student income support arrangements are paltry, inequitable and insufficient," union president David Barrow said in a statement.
Prof Bradley recommended boosting student welfare and making it easier to access after finding existing levels were inadequate.
The government has also said it will contribute $2 million to support a feasibility study examining how Charles Sturt University and Southern Cross University could improve access for regional students.
The Bradley review suggested a national regional university could be the answer.
AAP jcd/cdh/maur=0A
FED: Labor wants more poor students attending university by 2020