Combined Courses of Study

Equity group access and participation at the bachelor (honours/pass) level

4.3 Combined course students from rural and isolated backgrounds

Although students from rural and isolated backgrounds are treated as a single group in terms of institutional and national reporting and analysis, it is generally recognised that the nature and scope of disadvantage they experience can differ considerably. A review of 1991-1995 equity data (Postle et al, 1995) showed, for example, that isolated students had invariably experienced less access to higher education than their rural counterparts and had participated at lower levels than all other equity groups. This said, the review also revealed that rural students alone had experienced a steady linear decline in their access and participation levels during the period. This said, broadly similar patterns in participation have also been identified, including a tendency for rural and isolated students to be under-represented at the bachelor level and in several of the more professionally oriented fields of study (NBEET, 1996; Dobson, Sharma and Ramsay, 1998).

One of the key recommendations to emerge from the review of the national equity framework in 1995-1996 was that rural and isolated students, as well as those from low socio-economic backgrounds, needed to be accorded higher priority if their educational disadvantage was to be effectively addressed (NBEET, 1996). An investigation of rural and isolated school children’s higher education aspirations and attitudes (James, Wyn, Baldwin, Hepworth, McInnes & Stephanou, 1999) has subsequently pointed to several important conclusions. First, that educational disadvantage intensifies for students who have more than one equity characteristic and, second, that socio-economic factors exert a much greater influence on rural/isolated students’ post secondary educational patterns than do locational factors. Beyond this, the authors also shed valuable light on the extent to which rural (and isolated) students differed from those in urban areas in their perceptions of factors that discouraged them from participating in higher education. They were more likely, for example, to see less point in attending university, to want to earn an income immediately after school completion, and to be concerned about finances and losing touch with existing friends. James et al (1999) concluded that the cumulative effect of these differences did much to explain the continuing under-representation of rural and isolated students in the higher education sector.

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4.3.1 Background data - Rural students

In 1997, a total of 107,966 rural students were participating in the higher education sector, with increasing enrolments in the next two years taking the total to 109,641 in 1999. Commencing students accounted for approximately 40% of all rural student enrolments in each of the three years.

In 1999, 30% of all rural students enrolled in higher education were located in New South Wales, whilst Queensland and Victoria accounted for a further 29% and 23% respectively. Across the institutions included in this study, rural students in combined courses at the bachelor (honours/pass) level accounted for approximately 7% of all rural student enrolments. The relative percentage of rural students enrolled in bachelor level combined courses was somewhat higher in Victoria (9%) and much lower in South Australia (2%).

When institutional performance against the equity indicators was assessed in 1997 (DETYA 1999), the national access rate for rural students stood at 18.3% compared with the national reference value of 24.3%. Access averages in all states were also uniformly lower than their population share variously prescribed. A national participation ratio of 0.72, relative to the performance reference value of 1, indicated that rural students’ share of enrolments would need to increase by almost 30% if parity with the wider student population were to be achieved. Again, lower than expected levels of participation were observed across all States, with a maximum of 0.78 in Queensland.

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4.3.2 Rural students’ access to combined courses

A total of 2,137 rural students commenced a combined course at the bachelor (honours/pass) level in 1997, of whom 60% were female and 40% were male. In 1998, commencements rose slightly to 2,228 and, in 1999, rose again to 2,617. In the latter year, equivalent numbers of rural students commenced combined courses in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and, together, these three states accounted for 86% of all rural student commencements in combined courses across Australia. Between 1997 and 1999, rural females’ share of commencing enrolments lifted to 61%.

The access rates for rural students in combined courses at the bachelor (honours/pass) level for the period 1997-1999 are contained in Table 9. Bearing in mind the current national reference value (24.3%), the corresponding rates in the table clearly indicate that both rural males and females have experienced low rates of access to combined courses. This said, the national combined course access rates for rural females in all three years bear comparison with the 1997 all-course level average for rural students (18.3%). Furthermore, their rate of access to combined courses in 1999 (18.2%) was higher than that for all rural students who commenced at the bachelor level in the same year (17.5%). Thus whilst access to combined courses is clearly a key issue for rural females, there is some evidence to suggest that such courses may hold more appeal than single degrees. In contrast, the 1997-1999 combined course access rates for rural males were consistently lower than all benchmark figures, with 15.4% in 1999 being the highest level of access experienced.

Access rates for combined course rural students at the state/territory level were uniformly lower than what would be expected on the basis of population share and, with the exception of the Australian Capital Territory, also fell short of the respective all-course access averages reported in 1997. In Queensland, for example, the highest access rate for rural females during the 1997-1999 period was 26.6% and for males, 25.5% (QLD state reference value = 36.8%; 1997 access rate = 29.4%). The 1999 combined course access rates for both rural males (30.1%) and females (28.6%) in Tasmania serve to further illustrate the point, sitting well below the state’s reference value (55.3%), and also some distance below its 1997 all-course access average (41.1%). Providing something of a contrast, combined course access rates for rural males and females in the Australian Capital Territory tended to be higher than the all-course average recorded by this territory in 1997 (14.6%).¹³ Finally, there was a more noticeable gender gap in the uptake of combined courses in 1999 in New South Wales than in other states/ territories, with access for rural females being 16.3% and males, 11.0%.

Rural students’ combined course access rates varied considerably across institutions in 1999. The University of New England had a very high percentage of both rural females and males (F = 51.3%; M = 48.1%) relative to the NSW state reference value (24%), as did Southern Cross University (F = 80%; M = 70%) where far fewer students were enrolled. In Victoria, the University of Ballarat had a high percentage of rural female and male combined course commencers (F = 65.5%; M = 69.4%) relative to that state’s reference value (23.7%). Levels of access were also high for rural males in combined courses at La Trobe University (32.1%) and RMIT University (26.6%). Three institutions in Queensland had high percentages of rural commencers in combined courses at the bachelor level, these being James Cook University (F = 49.1%; M = 54.8%), the University of Southern Queensland (F = 72.2%; M = 77.0%) and the University of the Sunshine Coast (F = 72.7%; M = 72.0%).

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Table 9 Commencing combined course students from rural backgrounds at the bachelor level (Access)

	Rural students (no.)						Access (%)
	1997		1998		1999		1997		1998		1999
	F	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F	M
Institution
Charles Sturt University	18	2					90.0	50.0	n.a	n.a	n.a	n.a
Macquarie University	15	6	**	**	17	11	4.9	4.1	**	**	3.7	3.9
Southern Cross University	27	17	31	16	32	21	93.1	85.0	88.6	76.2	80.0	70.0
The University of New England	46	30	164	49	244	101	44.2	42.9	60.7	48.5	51.3	48.1
The University of New South Wales	16	22	16	21	14	13	5.6	7.3	5.6	7.7	4.3	4.6
The University of Newcastle	170	47	137	48	134	51	24.9	20.3	24.5	21.2	20.1	19.8
The University of Sydney	20	10	10	18	17	13	5.2	4.2	2.5	5.6	3.9	4.1
University of Technology, Sydney	17	12	24	17	23	14	5.8	7.0	7.0	2.9	5.7	2.3
University of Western Sydney	2	3	5	2	4	4	1.4	2.8	5.2	3.4	2.0	3.1
University of Wollongong	18	19	16	10	23	14	18.2	28.8	18.8	22.7	19.2	17.1
Deakin University	121	48	128	61	106	44	14.5	11.7	15.6	15.3	16.0	18.0
La Trobe University	24	41	34	46	32	42	27.9	28.5	23.0	33.6	23.2	32.1
Monash University	98	75	108	62	91	52	10.8	9.9	12.1	8.8	11.8	8.6
RMIT University	1	17	1	11		21	4.0	12.4	4.2	11.3	0.0	26.6
The University of Melbourne	89	99	90	93	73	82	12.6	11.3	13.0	12.8	12.2	11.5
University of Ballarat	54	55	90	56	93	59	56.8	67.9	75.0	70.9	65.5	69.4
Victoria University of Technology			9	13	24	20	n.a	n.a	7.6	17.6	9.3	15.0
Griffith University	43	44	61	34	79	53	15.6	20.5	21.2	17.5	20.7	20.1
James Cook University	21	17	29	20	52	34	35.0	40.5	46.8	39.2	49.1	54.8
Queensland University of Technology	184	101	159	95	104	64	32.1	24.0	29.5	27.4	18.8	16.8
University of the Sunshine Coast					32	18	n.a	n.a	n.a	n.a	72.7	72.0
The University of Queensland	107	47	105	45	134	79	20.0	16.2	20.4	15.5	22.8	20.2
University of Southern Queensland	20	14	34	26	65	57	90.9	73.7	63.0	76.5	72.2	77.0
Curtin University of Technology	1	1	2	3	3	10	2.0	2.4	3.8	3.4	3.2	7.8
Edith Cowan University			1	1	2	2	0.0	0.0	7.1	2.4	5.6	3.3
Murdoch University	2	3	5		8	4	2.7	5.6	5.8	0.0	9.2	7.8
The University of Western Australia	4	5	3	5	10	15	2.6	1.9	2.0	2.0	6.1	5.7
The Flinders University of SA					4		n.a	n.a	n.a	n.a	13.8	0.0
The University of Adelaide	1					1	14.3	0.0	n.a	n.a	0.0	12.5
University of South Australia	3	9	8	20	32	32	13.6	9.8	13.1	15.2	14.2	11.4
University of Tasmania	39	21	27	20	34	25	36.4	23.6	26.7	23.5	28.6	30.1
Northern Territory University			1				0.0	0.0	3.4	0.0	0.0	0.0
Australian Defence Force Academy							n.a	0.0	n.a	0.0	n.a	n.a*
The Australian National University	110	76	55	40	76	61	23.6	17.2	17.4	13.5	22.2	19.0
University of Canberra	15	10	34	9	21	15	34.1	16.9	28.6	10.0	23.1	21.7
Australian Catholic University	***	***			1	1	***	***	0.0	n.a	3.6	7.7
National	1286	851	1387	841	1584	1033	17.3	14.5	19.0	14.5	18.2	15.4
New South Wales	349	168	403	181	508	242	14.8	12.4	19.4	11.1	16.3	11.0
Victoria	387	335	460	342	419	320	14.6	13.9	16.3	15.5	16.2	16.1
Queensland	375	223	388	220	466	305	25.6	22.6	26.6	24.0	26.4	25.5
Western Australia	7	9	11	9	23	31	2.4	2.4	3.6	2.1	6.1	6.2
South Australia	4	9	8	20	36	33	13.8	9.2	13.1	15.2	14.0	10.6
Tasmania	39	21	27	20	34	25	36.4	23.6	26.7	23.5	28.6	30.1
Northern Territory			1				0.0	0.0	3.4	0.0	0.0	0.0
Australian Capital Territory	125	86	89	49	97	76	24.5	17.1	20.4	12.6	22.4	19.5
Multi-State	***	***			1	1	***	***	0.0	n.a	3.6	7.7

1 Access is the percentage of students from rural backgrounds in the combined course commencing student population at the bachelor level. The access reference values (1991 census) are: NSW (24.0%), VIC (23.7%), QLD (36.8%), WA (11.1%), SA (20.4%),TAS (55.3%), NT and ACT (0.0%), and Australia (24.3%).
2 Not applicable (n.a) indicates that no students commenced a combined course of study in that year.
3 Data unavailable **
4 Data omitted ***

4.3.3 Rural students’ participation in combined courses

The number of rural students participating in combined courses of study at the bachelor (honours/pass) level has increased steadily from a base of 4,988 in 1997 to 6,961 in 1999. Rural females initially comprised 58% of all rural student enrolments in combined courses and, by 1999, their share had increased to 60%.

The participation indicators for rural students in bachelor level combined courses are contained in Table 10. Overall, whilst the national ratios show small gains in the participation level for both females and males between 1997 and 1999, they also emphatically indicate that both rural females and males remain substantially under-represented in combined courses at the bachelor (honours/pass) level. The participation indicator of 0.54 for rural males in 1999, relative to a reference value of 1, is particularly concerning since it indicates a level of participation that is approximately half of what might be expected given their representation in the general population.

To the extent that rural students have been historically under-represented at the bachelor level, it is perhaps not surprising that their national combined course ratios at the bachelor level in the 1997-1999 period are also uniformly lower than the ratio recorded across all course levels in 1997 (0.72). Accordingly, the 1999 participation ratio (0.69) for all rural students at the bachelor (honours/pass) level provides a more useful benchmark and, against this, rural females can be seen to have participated in combined courses at a quite comparable rate in 1998 (0.66) and 1999 (0.65).

As Table 10 also shows, Queensland was the only state in which representation rates for both rural males and females were consistently above the national averages, whilst South Australia also regularly exceeded these for rural females. This said, at no point in time did the participation ratio of any state or territory approach the reference value of 1.

In the main, institutions with high rates of access for rural students also had high participation rates. In 1999, for example, the representation of rural females (3.48) and males (2.88) at Southern Cross University far exceeded their representation in the state population. Elsewhere, rural student representation rates at four universities were approximately twice what population share prescribes: the University of New England (F = 2.23; M = 1.99), the University of Ballarat (F = 2.82; M = 2.95), the University of the Sunshine Coast (F = 2.28; M = 2.35) and the University of Southern Queensland (F = 2.13; M = 2.14). Rural students were also well represented, albeit to a more moderate extent, at La Trobe University (F= 1.08; M = 1.41) and James Cook University (F = 1.35; M = 1.23).

¹³ A re-adjustment of the number of students coded to combined courses at the Australian National University between 1997–1998 provides at least a partial explanation for the apparent decline in combined course access for rural students in the ACT in the latter year.

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