MAKING ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION
MORE EQUITABLE
I forward the following submission for consideration by the Review. It focusses upon the extent to which access to higher education in Australia is inequitable and proposes a response which, if implemented, would go a great way towards ameliorating this situation. It takes the form of a summary statement followed by a series of propositions, each in turn followed by a brief explanation and commentary.
In summary this submission argues that
I was appointed to Flinders University in 1970 with a responsibility to assist school leavers to make the transition to higher education. I became involved in the Flinders University Mature Entry Scheme when it was introduced in 1974. In 1983 I was appointed as Coordinator of the Flinders University Foundation Course, and since that time I have been involved in the development, delivery and evaluation of that course. I am currently Coordinator of the Access and Equity Unit at Flinders University. I have undertaken doctoral studies in which I am exploring whether it is possible for access to higher education in Australia to be equitable; my thesis will be completed later this year.
I have developed this submission by drawing upon my attempts over the last twenty seven years to make access to higher education more accessible, and the detailed academic study of the issues involved which I have undertaken over the last four years.
This needs to be unequivocally stated. It means that there are people in this country who at birth have significantly less likelihood of ever being able to participate in higher education than other people even though they have at least as good academic potential, and others for whom the same outcome will occur as a consequence of their life experiences. The evidence to support this can be found in many places, including a publication last year by the Higher Education Council.[1]
The populations of people who experience such inequities are well documented. They include people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, rural and isolated students, women, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, and people with disabilities. Obviously these categories overlap.
There has been evidence which suggests that some members of these groups have improved their levels of participation in higher education over the last twenty years and therefore have achieved more equitable access to it. The access of some women has certainly improved, leading researchers at Monash to argue that '(g)iven the recent record of female achievement, there is no longer any reason for women to be considered as a disadvantaged group as regards access to higher education.'[2] It has also been argued that people from non English speaking backgrounds 'are now over-represented relative to the entire student body'[3] and should not be included in university equity schemes. While these conclusions have been challenged, they do qualify somewhat the nature of the inequitable access to higher education, and the priorities which should be given to future efforts to achieve a more just and fair society.
The literature over the last thirty years makes it clear beyond question that people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds are denied equitable access to higher education. The Martin Report back in 1964 commented that 'in all modern western societies the phenomenon of "social class" is a prime source of "unnatural" inequalities in education; that is to say, of inequalities which do not rest on differences of endowment'[4]. Things have not changed. The Higher Education Council reported in 1996 that students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds were still the 'most significantly under-represented group in higher education ...'.[5]
Despite the widely held view that the Australian society is an egalitarian and fair one, there are aspects of it which are essentially unfair and which give some groups significant advantages over others. These advantages are frequently not due to any special merit which the more fortunate people have, nor to deficiencies of those who have been marginalised, but are due to structures which have been built into the society. Thus it has been argued that 'the condition and processes of marginality are based upon a conjunction of structural factors'[6], and it has been recognised that the 'structural difficulties experienced by members of under-represented groups in education'[7] play an important role in denying such people equitable access to higher education. In particular, 'the structural characteristics of the capitalist economy'[8] have been identified as one of a number of causes of inequity in the Australian society.
One of the structural factors which has historically made it difficult for socially disadvantaged people to gain access to higher education has been the traditional selection and admission procedures adopted by universities. These have frequently required applicants to achieve certain scores in publicly held examinations in specified subjects. This system of selection demonstrably gave affluent people in our community significant advantages in gaining admission to higher education courses; for example, such people have access to secondary education in private schools which, it has been argued, 'have acted as a bridge to higher education'[9], and the expansion of which according to some 'underscores a powerful mechanism of entrenching privilege in Australian society'[10].
For a variety of reasons socially disadvantaged people must depend on the public school system the relative funding for which has declined in recent years. They are frequently unable to study the subjects traditionally required for entrance to particular higher education courses. The most dramatic case of this is the Indigenous people of this country who have had very limited opportunities to undertake secondary education which would lead on to higher education. However it is also true of other groups of socially disadvantaged people whom the secondary system has ill-prepared for advanced studies, a situation which prompted the comment that 'we now have to see the education system as one of the institutional structures that historically generate social inequalities'[11].
In addition, an important economic factor preventing such disadvantaged people from gaining access to higher education is their relative poverty and the relative educational disadvantages which flow from that.
It was mentioned that members of certain disadvantaged groups within society, for example some women and some people from non English speaking backgrounds, have been able to improve their access to higher education over the last decade but that the socially disadvantaged group have not. There are reasons for believing that the relative position of the latter, far from improving, is gradually deteriorating.
Evidence has been presented to show that the economic disadvantages being experienced by socially disadvantaged groups in Australia has been increasing. For example, a study of urban poverty revealed that 'the economic distance between Australians from different parts of the city has widened to an extraordinary degree.'[12] Further, this study indicated that '(t)here has been no "trickle down" of macro economic growth to the unemployed and low income earners in low SES areas since 1976'[13], indicating the falsity of claims by those who argue that social justice can be achieved simply by promoting economic growth which adds to the wealth of the affluent.
Universities have done little to put in place strategies which would give socially disadvantaged people more equitable access to higher education. In some ways this seems surprising. It has been stated that '(t)he 36 public universities have between them something like 600 access and equity programs'; yet most of them can reasonably be described as 'low-status activities in low-status institutions for low-status courses'; and in high demand universities 'equity programs do little more than shave a few tertiary entrance points from high cut-offs or offer a limited number of places for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders'.[14] Further, there is evidence that at least some of the so-called equity programs which have been established provide forms of entry for non qualified people from more affluent backgrounds. It has been commented for example that '(m)ature-age students are even more likely than school leavers to be from advantaged backgrounds'[15], a conclusion supported by research carried out in my own university.
The policies of the present government appear likely to make this situation worse. It must be admitted that the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs has acknowledged[16] that there are 'significant shortcomings' in terms of the relative participation of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in higher education, but the actions taken by her government will exacerbate this situation. Driven by 'the vital imperatives of fiscal policy', she has announced proposals to cut expenditure in higher education and to raise more income from the sector. Thus the HECS charges have been raised, the income thresholds at which repayments will be required have been lowered, and the rates of required repayment will be faster. If these have any effect upon socially disadvantaged students, it will be to further discourage and make more difficult their participation in higher education.
The decision to allow universities to accept full fee paying students will not in itself affect such students directly or immediately. However it means that those who are affluent and who can afford full fees are to have an opportunity to gain access to higher education which the poor are denied; relatively speaking the scales are tipped still further towards the affluent and away from the disadvantaged. And one can be forgiven for suspecting that this is but one step along a more and more retrogressive path.
'Socially disadvantaged' people very frequently do not qualify for admission to higher education courses by means of the traditional entry procedures, and this is at least in part due to the structural disadvantages which they face. However, there is evidence which supports the proposition that when alternative selection and admission procedures are put in place to encourage the admission of such students, they perform at least as well academically as their more affluent fellow citizens.
Flinders University established in 1983 a Foundation Course designed to provide an alternative form of admission for non traditional students. This course now seeks to target socially disadvantaged people; applicants receive positive weightings if they are in receipt of a Health Care Card, are the first in their families ever to enrol in a university course, have had limited secondary education, and live in an area with a low socioeconomic postcode according to the Higher Education Council[17] The academic performance of 885 Foundation Course students who enrolled in Arts, Science and Economics degree programs at Flinders between 1983 and 1994 was compared with that of a matched sample of students who were admitted to the University by traditional means. No significant difference was found at any level from first year to the completion of doctoral studies. The Foundation Course students actually performed marginally better at first year level, where their mean Grade Point Average scores were higher in 9 out of the 12 years studied[18], and at doctoral level where they received 8 out of the 14 doctorates awarded to this group of students. There was also no significant difference in rates of attrition.
It is interesting, in the light of the above, to note a study which showed 'that the most successful Harvard graduates were those with lower SATs from blue-collar backgrounds.'[19]
Throughout the history of higher education in Australia, people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds have not had equitable access to higher education. Since the 1970s various strategies have been tried which might have been expected to change this situation, ranging from the abolition of tertiary fees under the Whitlam government to the development of sophisticated access and equity strategies under Minister Ryan and Minister Dawkins. These have moved Australian higher education from a distinctly elitist system towards one with some of the characteristics of a mass system. All the universities in Australia have developed equity profiles and equity strategies. There is evidence of some groups of people having increased their rates of participation in higher education. Despite this, however, there appears to have been no positive change in the access to higher education of people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, and there is reason to believe that their relative position is declining. This is the basis for proposing that if this last major barrier to the development of a fair and just society is to be overcome, a radical new intiative must be proposed. Such an initiative is set out in the following sub-proposals.
Developing a system which will provide equity of access for this group of people represents the most challenging task facing higher education today. One of the first tasks will be to develop a method of defining and targeting this group of people. There have been few systematic attempts to do this. DEETYA has employed the postcode method suggested by Lin Martin[20], but this has proved unsatisfactory in many ways.
Ainley et al. have proposed that 'a person's overall social position or social standing is determined by individual achievements, the most important of which are educational attainment, employment and occupational status, income and wealth.'[21] It would be possible to follow their recommended procedure of combining 'standardised scores for each of educational status, occupational status and family wealth with equal weights'[22], thus producing a valid measure of a person's 'social disadvantage'.
It is of interest that Kahlenberg has argued that one of the reasons that no systematic strategy been put in place to rectify the inequity suffered by people from low socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States has been the difficulties experienced in defining the variable. To overcome this problem he suggests three methods of tackling the situation[23], the second of which is identical to that suggested above. His first suggestion is a simpler one which is to measure disadvantage on the single factor of family income, and this would certainly be a better measure than any which are currently available to higher education institutions.
To establish a system designed to make access to higher education for socially disadvantaged people more equitable it will be necessary to have a verifiable method of targeting such people. This could be achieved by establishing a system of standardised scores either of family income, or of family income and wealth, educational status and employment status.
Given the long history of disadvantage which this group of people have suffered with respect to access to higher education, the structural hurdles which still prevent them from having a fair chance to gain such access, and the evidence that people in this group have as much academic potential as those from more affluent groups, it will be necessary to put in place an affirmative action strategy if past inequities are even to be somewhat ameliorated.
Such a strategy would involve giving students wishing to apply for places in university courses the opportunity to complete an application form indicating that they are socially disadvantaged and providing evidence which can be reduced to standardised scores on the measures described above. Such standardised scores could then be ranked within a course or an institution and used in the process of allocating places. They could also be provided to DEETYA for the purposes of statistical comparison.
The history of higher education suggests that there will be opposition from some quarters, and that this will probably take indirect and even hidden forms. It is likely that some departments in some universities will resist the proposition that they should admit a greater number of 'socially disadvantaged' students. Kahlenberg recognised that this was likely to happen in the United States also and therefore argued that 'the government ... needs a workable definition that will not be easily circumvented'[24]. This will also be necessary in Australia, and either of the above measures would enable this to be achieved.
Opposition to the proposal to establish a strategy to overcome the educational inequities faced by socially disadvantaged people can be expected from those who are more affluent and who may have something to lose. One such line of opposition may be that identifying who belongs to such a group involves the invasion of people's privacy. However it must be stressed that it is not possible to assist people in this category unless they can be accurately targeted, and the criteria used must be verifiable. In this way rorting of such a system can be avoided.
Further, people could be given the option of not providing information about family income and wealth; if they choose not to do so, however, they would not be eligible to be placed upon any list of 'social disadvantage' and to receive preferential treatment as a consequence of this.
Finally, universities could be expected to put into place confidentiality procedures with respect to any such information provided, something which they already do with regard to academic results of all of their students.
It has been pointed out that one of the factors which has led to socially disadvantaged people being denied equitable access to higher education has been the use of traditional methods of selection and admission. There has developed a widespread view that the traditional public examination system is a fair and foolproof way in which academic merit can be established; however reasons have been given which call this seriously into question. Further there is a great deal of evidence to show that students admitted by alternative methods perform as well as, and even better than, those admitted by traditional means. Students admitted by way of Mature Entry Schemes have typically done rather better than those admitted by traditional means; for example, a study undertaken at Flinders University in 1984 showed that 'the performance of mature entry students was almost one grade higher than that of students entering directly'[25]. It has been pointed out, however, that such schemes do not provide appropriate forms of admission for many socially disadvantaged people; they are clearly quite inappropriate for Indigenous Australians, for example. A more recent study undertaken in 1996, however, showed that Flinders University Foundation Course students, who were selected on the grounds of 'social disadvantage', performed at least as well as, and probably somewhat better than, those admitted by traditional means[26].
Therefore socially disadvantaged people applying for admission to higher education courses will need to be given appropriate alternative opportunities to demonstrate their academic potential for the purposes of admission. Universities should be encouraged to develop as necessary programs which specifically target such people, which could use the criteria referred to in Proposition 7a as a means of selection of suitable participants into such programs, and which could provide the opportunity for those selected to be taught what the university would expect of them, and to demonstrate their academic potential in responding to those expectations. Many equity programs which have been developed thus far do not target socially disadvantaged people and some such as Mature Entry Schemes attract, as has been pointed out, significant numbers of people from affluent backgrounds. But there are examples, of which the Flinders University Foundation Course is one, which do precisely that. This course has demonstrated that it attracts socially disadvantaged students capable of succeeding in all courses, including such high demand courses as Law.
I have argued elsewhere that '(t)he task of a university committed to a viable access and equity program is to help students to adjust to the new culture' and that '(t)heir academic difficulties typically have more to do with cultural adjustment than with intelligence'[27]. Socially disadvantaged people are frequently the first in their families ever to undertake university studies and may be unaware of the demands which will be made of them. It is part of the educational responsibilities of modern universities to inform them of the nature of higher education and of the demands which would be made of them as students. This is a process which is very valuable to academic staff because it forces them to specify in clear terms the nature and the objectives of their courses.
I have deliberately described this process as one of acculturation, and not as assimilation, because I see it as a two-way process: on the one hand the socially disadvantaged student will have to change in certain respects in order to become a successful university student; on the other the institution will have to make changes in its curriculum and teaching practices if it is to be truly inclusive of this previously under-represented section of the community. The development of appropriate bridging programs can be invaluable in assisting academic staff to understand how best to promote the academic potential of these students.
It has been pointed out that socially disadvantaged people frequently cannot be expected to gain entry to university courses by traditional means and that more flexible forms of selection and admission developed specifically for this group of people need to be developed. These should produce satisfactory measures of academic potential so that students admitted on the basis of these can claim to be perfectly legitimate university students. When socially disadvantaged people apply for admission to university courses they must meet the specified requirements for entry. Over time the legitimacy of any given set of entry requirements can be validated by the subsequent academic performance of the students admitted under them.
However, when socially disadvantaged people apply for admission to university courses and lack the necessary evidence of academic potential, they should be offered 'provisional' places in a university mainstream course subject to their satisfactory completion of an appropriate bridging course, preferably developed and run by the university itself. This is the form of affirmative action which universities can offer to such people to help them to overcome disadvantages which are largely due to social structures over which they have no influence. The satisfactory completion of the bridging program would constitute an academic requirement expected of the student in return for the preferential treatment given by the offering of a provisional place in a mainstream course.
It is indisputable that the higher education system is inequitable and that those who suffer most from this are socially disadvantaged people. A strategy has been described which could help to ameliorate this situation. If it were decided that it was not possible to expand the higher education system or to spend more on it than at present, it would still be possible to implement such a strategy by specifying the proportions of socially disadvantaged people who should be admitted to universities and to courses within universities, and by decreasing the proportions of people admitted from more affluent sections of the population in order to keep the size of the sector, and of the institutions within it, approximately the same. If this were considered the desired approach, what proportions of socially disadvantaged people should be admitted?
It is arguable that if the Australian society were truly fair and equitable major groups of people within it would be found in higher education in the same proportion as they exist within the population as a whole. However, given the long history of disadvantage experienced by socially disadvantaged people it is reasonable to assert, as Kahlenberg has done in the United States, that in the short term at least 'proportional representation is too ambitious a goal' and that 'reasonable goals should be set: short of proportional representation, but with greater representation than we see today'[28].
The establishment of such goals would be necessary whether or not it was decided to expand the system. If the decision was made not to expand the system, the people from more affluent groups would have their access reduced proportionately. In fact, given the decision of the government to make access available to those who are able to pay full fees, it would seem only a reasonable balance to increase the proportion of socially disadvantaged people within the HECS liable category of students who would be expected to be admitted to higher education institutions. What is desirable is that the goals of the government and the universities both in the short and the long term be made explicit so that the Australian public can support the move towards a fairer and more just system.
There is another reason for suggesting that such a strategy would not necessarily require additional expenditures. The experience of the Flinders University Foundation Course demonstrates that it is possible to develop a mechanism which targets socially disadvantaged people, which provides a means of promoting the acculturation of these people into the university environment, and which facilitates their selection into mainstream courses, at very low cost to the University. This is not to argue that this is necessarily the best possible procedure, but it is to say that universities across Australia could put such procedures into place at very little additional expense.
If it were considered more desirable to increase the size of the higher education system in order that it could be made more fair, it is reasonable to assert that more revenue could be generated in order to fund it by proposing an increase in income tax specifically for this purpose. It has been argued that 'people are willing to pay more for education if they can be convinced that that is where it will be spent'[29], and it therefore seems likely that if the Australian people are informed of the nature of the inequitable access to higher education which exists, they would willingly pay more in direct taxation to fund a scheme designed to rectify the situation, provided that the process by which the additional revenue was spent was transparent.
Not only would this be a means of producing the additional income necessary to expand the higher education system in a fairer way, but it would arguably have important social and political consequences. It seems undoubted that 'unfairness creates crises of belief in political systems'[30], and that the establishment of such a strategy would remove much of the sense of unfairness which exists at the present.
In order to make the proposed new strategy transparent to the general public, and so that both government and higher education institutions will have an accurate idea of the extent to which current inequities are being removed, it would be essential for data concerning the extent to which socially disadvantaged people are participating in higher education to be collected and made public. Therefore the standardised scores of educational status, occupational status and family income and wealth, or of family income alone if the simplest of the proposed models is adopted, should be collected by each university and in due course should be made available to DEETYA. Each university should also report upon the proportion of students within specified ranges of social disadvantage which are admitted to each mainstream course and to the university as a whole, and the numbers which are offered 'provisional' admission provided that they satisfactorily complete an approved bridging course specifically designed for socially disadvantaged people and which both aids the acculturation of these applicants and at the same time assesses their academic potential.
DEETYA should then annually make a report upon the performance of the system as a whole and of each university concerning the extent to which the participation rates of socially disadvantaged people set for a given year have been reached, and indicating what the targets for the forthcoming year will be.
If it is decided to raise additional taxation for the purposes of making the higher education system fairer, DEETYA should also report annually upon the amount raised by this system each year and the areas in which it was spent.
VIC BEASLEY
Coordinator
Access and Equity Unit
[1]
Higher Education Council (1996) Equality, Diversity and Excellence: Advancing the National Higher Education Equity Framework. National Board of Employment, Education and Training, AGPS, Canberra, April 1996.[2] Birrell Bob, Dobson Ian, Rapson Virginia and Smith Fred T (1995) Female achievement in higher education and the professions. People and Place, vol. 3, no. 1, 1995, 53.
[3] Maslen Geoff (1997) Call to end 'wrongful inclusion' of NESBs in equity schemes. Campus Review, 19-25 March 1997, 4.
[4] Martin L H (Chair) (1964) Tertiary Education in Australia: Report of the Committee on the Future of Tertiary Education in Australia to the Australian Universities Commission, Volume 1. AGPS, Canberra, 43.
[5] Higher Education Council, op. cit., 63.
[6] Wyn Johanna and White Rob (1997) Rethinking Youth. Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, New South Wales, 36.
[7] Moodie Gavin (1995) An Instrumentalist Approach to Equity, Quality and Opportunities for Learning. Journal of Institutional Research in Australasia, Volume 4, Number 2, September 1995, 11.
[8] Stilwell Frank (1993) Economic inequality. Who gets what in Australia. Pluto Press, Australia, 79.
[9] Jamrozik Adam (1991) Class, Inequality and the State: Social Change, Social Policy and the New Middle Class. Macmillan, South Melbourne, 175.
[10] Welch Anthony (1996) Australian Education: Reform or Crisis? Allen and Unwin, Australia, 148.
[11] Connell R W, White Viv and Johnston Ken (1990) Poverty and Education: Changing Conceptions. Discourse: Social Justice and Education, Volume 11, Number 1, October 1990, 15.
[12] Gregory R G and Hunter B (1995) The Macro Economy and the Growth of Ghettos and Urban Poverty in Australia. The Australian National University Centre for Economic Policy Research, Discussion Paper No 325, April 1995, 1.
[13] ibid., 20.
[14] Ashenden Dean and Milligan Sandra (1997) Progress towards a square deal for all. The Australian, 9 April 1997, 40.
[15] ibid.
[16] Vanstone Amanda (1996) Higher Education Budget Statement. AGPS, Canberra.
[17] Martin L M (1994) Equity and General Performance Indicators in Higher Education,Volume 1, Equity Indicators. Department of Employment, Education and Training, AGPS, Canberra, 183-229.
[18] Beasley Vic (1996) A New Direction in Life? An Evaluation of the Flinders University Foundation Course. Access and Equity Advisory Committee, Flinders University of South Australia, August 1996, 8.
[19] Kahlenberg, op. cit., 100.
[20] Martin L M, op. cit., 135-136.
[21] Ainley John, Graetz Brian, Long Michael and Batten Margaret (1995) Socioeconomic Status and School Education. Australian Council for Educational Research, AGPS, Canberra, June 1995, 130.
[22] ibid, 131.
[23] Kahlenberg Richard D (1996) The Remedy: Class, Race and Affirmative Action. Basic Books, New York, 128.
[24] ibid., 177-178.
[25] Beasley Vic (1985) Participation and Equity: The Flinders Experiment. Health and Counselling Service, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia, 24.
[26] Beasley (1996) op. cit.
[27] Beasley Vic (1990) Can a university equity programme be made to work? Research and Development in Higher Education, Volume 12, paper presented at the fifteenth annual conference of the Higher Education Research Society of Australasia, July 1989, 120.
[28] Kahlenberg, op. cit., 150.
[29] Burrow Sharan (1997) Opening Address, Annual Federal Conference, Australian Education Union, 15-18 January 1997, Melbourne, 7.
[30] Cox Eva (1995) A Truly Civil Society. The 1995 Boyer Lectures, ABC Books, Sydney, 49.