The Centre for the Study of Higher Education was commissioned to analyse the performance of equity groups in higher education during the period 1991-2002 and to investigate whether the definitions of equity groups are still appropriate.
The project team analysed DEST’s Higher Education Student Statistics Collection for the period 1991-2002 inclusive, examining the performance of five groups:
- people from low socio-economic backgrounds;
- people from rural or isolated areas;
- people with a disability;
- people from a non-English speaking background; and
- women, especially in non-traditional areas of study and higher degrees.
The project team was not asked to analyse the performance of Indigenous people.
In order to report the demographic and enrolment patterns for each group, the performance indicators of access, participation, success and retention for each group were disaggregated as appropriate by key characteristics, including age, gender, broad field of study (BFOS) / broad field of education (BFOE), level of course, mode of attendance and type of attendance. An analysis of the possible disadvantage associated with multiple group membership was also conducted.
The project was conducted within a reasonably short period. The analysis of the DEST data proved more difficult than anticipated and certain unexpected problems with the dataset and the definitions of indicators were encountered. For these reasons, there has not been the opportunity to thoroughly verify all of the analyses and data on the completions indicator have not been reported. Nevertheless, the project findings confirm, and in some cases extend, certain patterns of equity group performance that have been known for some time. These patterns form the basis for the conclusions that follow.
The project’s major conclusions are listed below with page references to the location of the full discussion in the body of the document.
General (p14-16)
1. Special emphasis should be given within the equity policy framework to people from low socio-economic backgrounds due to the continuing extent of under-representation of this group, with recognition of the particular effects of socio-economic background for people from rural and isolated backgrounds.
2. The equity policy framework should require universities to monitor and report the higher education performance of identified population sub-groups as appropriate, regardless of whether or not the sub-groups are designated as equity groups at the time.
People from low socio-economic backgrounds (p22-24)
3. To align the socio-economic background (SES) indicator with the critical environmental factors within which young people make decisions about their futures and the possibility of higher education during schooling, socio-economic status should be measured using information collected from students on their parental occupational status. For mature-age students, their parental occupations at the time of their secondary schooling should be used. Consideration should be given to whether it is also feasible to collect information on parental educational attainment. Appropriate sub-groupings would need to be determined and work would be needed to establish reference values from census data.
4. If agreement cannot be reached on collecting the information as suggested in conclusion three, SES should be determined by categorising the students’ home addresses in terms of smaller geographical units, such as census sub-districts or Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
5. Greater emphasis should be given in the equity policy framework to access for people from low SES backgrounds into the individual fields of study in which there is the most significant under-representation.
6. Greater emphasis should be given in the equity policy framework to access for people from low SES backgrounds into higher degrees.
7. The access and participation indicators for low SES are currently presented using three separate classifications, National, State and Urban. This leads to potentially misleading information. A single National SES classification should be the only classification used. The student population figures for individual institutions should be compared with state reference values, that is, reference values based on the proportion of low SES people within the relevant state.
People from rural and isolated areas (p30-32)
8. People living outside urban regions continue to be a significantly under-represented group and should be given specific consideration within the equity policy framework. Rural and isolated males should be given particular attention due to their low, and dwindling, participation shares.
9. The rural/isolated/urban classification requires updating to reflect new classifications used by government agencies. A new location classification must be developed. The preferred classification is one based on the geographical location recommended by the National Education Performance Monitoring Taskforce (NEPMT), drawing on the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) in which regions are classified as metropolitan, provincial and remote—broadly aligned with the existing categories of urban, rural and isolated.
People with a disability (p36-37)
10. A study should be conducted to update the reference value for people with a disability.
11. The self-reporting of disability at enrolment should be simplified by asking students a general question about whether they have a disability which may affect their studies, with an illustrative list of examples.
People from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) (p43-47)
12. People from non-English speaking backgrounds as presently defined should no longer be considered an equity target group.
13. DEST should conduct a further investigation of their student data bases to investigate reasons for the paradoxical pattern of slightly lower success with slightly higher retention rates for NESB students, and the apparent sharp fluctuations in retention of NESB students over the period in question.
14. Given the regional diversity of immigrant groups, universities should be encouraged to develop focused programs for specific groups of recent immigrants in their local areas, as part of their responsibility for community service and engagement.
Women in non-traditional areas (p55-56)
15. Women in the fields of Engineering and Information Technology should be retained as an equity group, with targets of 40% participation.
Possible new groups (p56-63)
16. Men in the fields of Nursing, Society and Culture and Education should be designated an equity group, with appropriate targets set for their participation (40% in Society and Culture and Education, and initially 20% in Nursing). (p56-57)
17. The overall participation rates of men in higher education should be monitored, so that, if the rate has not increased within two to three years, they should be considered as a possible equity group. (p56-57)
18. An investigation should be conducted into the feasibility of including schools from which students are under-represented in higher education as a component of the equity framework, considering the possibility of using either average ENTER (or equivalent) results for individual schools or rates of transition to higher education from individual schools. (p61-63)