Improving equity in higher education

Improving access to and success in higher education is a wicked problem. The factors which lead to the under-representation of equity groups are multilevel (macro, meso, micro), intersectional (with a compounding influence) and accrue across a person’s life course. This means that there are no simple solutions and multiple actors need to work together to achieve change.

This presentation draws on Nadine’s research, practice and policy work over the past 10 years as well as insights from the recent World Higher Education Conference (WHEC2022) in Barcelona with the theme of Leave no one behind.

Australia is one of the global success stories in increasing participation of equity group students in higher education but its ambitions and outcomes declined between 2017 and 2022. The new Australian government has re-affirmed the national commitment to equity in higher education and articulated its aspiration for a step change in participation rates of students from Indigenous, low SES, and/or regional and remote backgrounds. This is to be achieved through “trialling, evaluating, implementing and monitoring the sorts of things that will really shift the dial” (Jason Clare, Minister for Education, 6 July 2022).

This lecture looks at the macro (policy), meso (institutional practice) and micro (widening participation and retention initiatives) levels of equity in Australian higher education to distill the core learnings from the past decade and to propose necessary next steps for policy, research and practice.