Combined Courses of Study

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

4.3.4 Background data - Isolated students

In 1997, a total of 11,348 students from isolated backgrounds were undertaking studies in the higher education sector. This number declined slightly to 11,191 in 1998 before rising again in 1999 to a total of 11,386 students (DETYA, 2000). Commencing students comprised 43% of all isolated students in higher education in 1997 and 45% in 1999. The majority of isolated students enrolled in the sector in 1999 were located at institutions in Queensland (31%) and Western Australia (28%).

A very small number of isolated students participated in combined courses at the bachelor (honours/pass) level during the 1997-1999 period. Indeed, by 1999, isolated student enrolments in such courses totalled no more than 428 students, of whom 61% were female and 39% were male. Across the institutions included in this study, isolated students in combined courses at the bachelor (honours/pass) level accounted for approximately 4% of all isolated student enrolments. The relative percentage of isolated students enrolled in degree-level combined courses was somewhat higher in Tasmania, Queensland and Victoria.

An assessment of the relative status of isolated students across all course levels in 1997 (DETYA 1999) indicated that their national access rate (1.9%) was substantially lower than what might be expected on the basis of population share (4.5%). A participation ratio of 0.39, against the reference value of 1, further indicated that to achieve an equitable representation in the higher education sector, isolated student enrolments would need to increase by a further 61%.

Although access rates at the state/territory level were sometimes higher than the national average, Victoria was the only state to record a rate for isolated students (0.5%) above its state reference value (0.3). With a participation ratio of 1.43, Victoria was also the only state where the representation of isolated students exceeded state population share. Whilst these strong figures undoubtedly represented positive equity outcomes for isolated students in Victoria, it must nonetheless be borne in mind that universities in this state accounted for only 6% of isolated students in the sector at this particular point in time.

4.3.5 Isolated students’ access to combined courses

In 1997, a total of 117 students from isolated backgrounds commenced a combined course of study at the bachelor (honours/pass) level in higher education institutions throughout Australia, with females accounting for 57% of these enrolments and males 43%. The number of commencing isolated students dropped marginally in 1998 and then almost doubled in 1999 to 200 students.¹⁴ A significant rise in female enrolments underpinned this growth and thus, by 1999, females accounted for 68% of all isolated student enrolments in combined courses at the bachelor (honours/pass) level.

Since the available access and participation data indicates that isolated students continue to be one of the most, if not the most, disadvantaged equity groups in the higher education sector, it is particularly important that the combined course data is not evaluated in a contextual vacuum. Thus whilst the national reference value of 4.5% for access still applies, the 1997 rate of access across all course levels (1.9%) serves as a more immediate benchmark for evaluating the national combined course access rates contained in Table 11.

It is immediately evident from Table 11 that the national combined course access rates for both male and female isolated students persistently sat below 1.9%, with 1.6% for isolated female students in 1999 being the highest access rate recorded for either gender during the study period. This said, combined course access rates for isolated students did sometimes match or exceed various state reference values. Most recently, for example, combined course access rates for isolated females (0.4%) and males (0.3%) in Victoria have been reflective of population share (0.3%) and, in Tasmania, the access rate for females (1.7%) was marginally above.

The access rate for all isolated student commencers at the bachelor (honours/pass) level - which stood at 1.6% in 1999 - provides another valid point of comparison. Using this as the benchmark, it is apparent that isolated females’ access to combined courses in 1999 (1.6%) was comparable to that experienced by isolated students at the bachelor level generally, whilst isolated males’ access to combined courses was substantially lower (1.0).

In relation to access at the institutional level, Table 11 further indicates that isolated students’ access to combined courses in 1999 exceeded state reference values in only ten institutions. Levels of access in three of these - the University of New England (F = 6.3; M = 1.9), James Cook University (F = 15.1; M = 9.7) and Melbourne University (F = 0.7; M = 0.3) - matched or exceeded their respective state reference values for both genders. La Trobe University (M = 1.5) and the University of Ballarat (M = 1.2) had high access rates for isolated males, whilst a number of other universities had high access rates for isolated females relative to their state reference values.

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Table 11 Commencing combined course students from isolated backgrounds at the bachelor level (Access)

	Commencing isolated 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							0.0	0.0	n.a	n.a	n.a	n.a
Macquarie University	1						0.3	0.0	**	**	0.0	0.0
Southern Cross University				1		1	0.0	0.0	0.0	4.8	0.0	3.3
The University of New England	2	2	9	3	30	4	1.9	2.9	3.3	3.0	6.3	1.9
The University of New South Wales	1	2			3		0.3	0.7	0.0	0.0	0.9	0.0
The University of Newcastle	3	1	2		1	1	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.0	0.1	0.4
The University of Sydney	1				1		0.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.0
University of Technology, Sydney	2			1		1	0.7	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.0	0.2
University of Western Sydney							0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
University of Wollongong							0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Deakin University	3		1	1	3		0.4	0.0	0.1	0.3	0.5	0.0
La Trobe University	1		1			2	1.2	0.0	0.7	0.0	0.0	1.5
Monash University	2		1		4		0.2	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.5	0.0
RMIT University				1		1	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	0.0	1.3
The University of Melbourne		1	1	3	4	2	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.4	0.7	0.3
University of Ballarat		1	1			1	0.0	1.2	0.8	0.0	0.0	1.2
Victoria University of Technology							n.a	n.a	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Griffith University	6	7	2	2	5	5	2.2	3.3	0.7	1.0	1.3	1.9
James Cook University	5	4	6	4	16	6	8.3	9.5	9.7	7.8	15.1	9.7
Queensland University of Technology	13	6	4	9	5	5	2.3	1.4	0.7	2.6	0.9	1.3
University of the Sunshine Coast					1		n.a	n.a	n.a	n.a	2.3	0.0
The University of Queensland	3	2	8	5	9	4	0.6	0.7	1.6	1.7	1.5	1.0
University of Southern Queensland	2	3	1	1	9	2	9.1	15.8	1.9	2.9	10.0	2.7
Curtin University of Technology	4	4	2	1	5	7	8.0	9.5	3.8	1.1	5.4	5.5
Edith Cowan University	2	2			2	1	13.3	8.0	0.0	0.0	5.6	1.6
Murdoch University	6	1	4	1	7	2	8.0	1.9	4.7	2.9	8.0	3.9
The University of Western Australia	5	7	8	4	11	6	3.3	2.7	5.3	1.6	6.7	2.3
The Flinders University of SA					3	1	n.a	n.a	n.a	n.a	10.3	4.5
The University of Adelaide		1			1		0.0	16.7	n.a	n.a	25.0	0.0
University of South Australia		4	1	5	8	9	0.0	4.3	1.6	3.8	3.6	3.2
University of Tasmania	1		3	1	2	1	0.9	0.0	3.0	1.2	1.7	1.2
Northern Territory University	1		2	1	4	1	3.0	0.0	6.9	5.6	16.0	5.6
Australian Defence Force Academy							n.a	0.0	n.a	0.0	n.a	0.0
The Australian National University	3	1		3	2	1	0.6	0.2	0.0	1.0	0.6	0.3
University of Canberra		1					0.0	1.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Australian Catholic University							***	***	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
National	67	50	57	47	136	64	0.9	0.9	0.8	0.8	1.6	1.0
Total New South Wales	10	5	11	5	35	7	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.3	1.1	0.3
Total Victoria	6	2	5	5	11	6	0.2	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.4	0.3
Total Queensland	29	22	21	21	45	22	2.0	2.2	1.4	2.3	2.6	1.8
Total Western Australia	17	14	14	6	25	16	5.8	3.7	4.6	1.4	6.6	3.2
Total South Australia		5	1	5	12	10	0.0	5.1	1.6	3.8	4.7	3.2
Total Tasmania	1		3	1	2	1	0.9	0.0	3.0	1.2	1.7	1.2
Total Northern Territory	1		2	1	4	1	3.0	0.0	6.9	5.6	16.0	5.6
Total Australian Capital Territory	3	2		3	2	1	0.6	0.4	0.0	0.8	0.5	0.3
Total Multi-State							***	***	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

Access is the percentage of students from isolated backgrounds in the combined course commencing student population at the bachelor level. The access reference values (1991 census) are as follows: NSW (1.4%), VIC (0.3%), QLD (5.7%), WA (16.3%), SA (5.1%), TAS (1.5%), NT (96.1%), ACT (0.0%) and Australia (4.5%).
Not applicable (n.a.) indicates that no students commenced a combined course of study in that year.
Data unavailable **
Data omitted ***

4.3.6 Isolated students’ participation in combined courses

In 1997, a total of 280 isolated students were participating in combined courses of study at the bachelor (honours/pass) level. By 1999, the overall number had increased to 428, with new commencements in this year contributing 200 students, or approximately 47%, to the total.

The participation indicators for isolated students in combined courses of study (see Table 12) range from a low of 0.16 for males in 1997 to a high of 0.22 for females in 1999. Recalling that the participation reference value is 1 (and the 1997 all course level ratio was 0.39), it is clear that isolated students, irrespective of their gender, are participating in combined courses at exceedingly low levels. By way of example, the 1999 national combined course participation indicator of 0.22 for isolated females signifies that this group’s level of participation is 22% of what could be expected, given the proportion of isolated people in the general population. In the same vein, an indicator of 0.18 signifies that isolated males’ participation in combined courses would need to increase by a massive 82% to achieve population equivalence. The under-representation of isolated students in the combined course population at the bachelor (honours/pass) level is further magnified when these national participation ratios are compared with the 1999 ratio for all isolated students at the bachelor level (0.33).

Participation rates at the state level varied considerably across the study period but were rarely comparable to either the 1997 all course levels ratio or the participation reference value of 1. Tasmania’s female combined course participation indicators in each of the three years (0.63, 0.87, 0.63) represent partial exceptions in so far as they were consistently higher than this state’s 1997 all course ratio (0.55). South Australia’s male participation indicators are even more noteworthy, first, because the reference value was exceeded in 1997 (1.22) and 1998 (1.12) and, second, because the current representation rate of 0.86 - whilst obviously lower than the reference value - is significantly higher than that of other states/territories. In saying this, it also needs to be recognised, however, that isolated people constitute a relatively small group in the South Australian population.

Table 12 also clearly highlights the extent of variation in patterns of participation at the institutional level and, more particularly, the degree of progress that must be made if isolated students are to achieve adequate representation in the combined course student population at the bachelor (honours/pass) level. Significantly, although approximately half of the institutions listed in the table achieved representation rates in 1999 that were some distance above the national averages, the participation reference value was exceeded in eight institutions only. Isolated females and males were well represented at the University of New England (F = 3.65; M = 2.23) and James Cook University (F = 1.75; M = 1.40), which both have comparatively high numbers of isolated students enrolled in combined courses. In addition, the representation rate for isolated females in combined courses was high at the University of Southern Queensland (1.18).

¹⁴ The decline in isolated student combined course numbers between 1997 and 1998 was primarily due to a decline in commencements at the Queensland University of Technology.

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