Access and Success: Not Just a Dream!

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11

Social Justice; Higher Education; Global Approach; Foreign Countries; Vocational Education; Disadvantaged; Disproportionate Representation; Socioeconomic Status; College School Cooperation; Partnerships in Education; Workplace Learning; College Instruction; Inclusion; Access to Education; Success

In March 2008, the Federal Government initiated a Review of Australian Higher Education. The Report (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent and Scales, 2008) highlighted the fact that Australia has reached a key stage in its history with respect to higher education. It states that Australia is falling behind other countries in performance and investment in higher education. Currently Australia is ranked 9th out of 30 countries in the proportion of the Australian population aged 25-34 years with a degree level qualification (down from 7th a decade ago).The Report argues that in order for Australia to remain internationally competitive in the global economy, it must have access to increased numbers of well qualified people in its workforce. The challenge is to identify where this increased number of degree qualified people may come from. In order to address this issue, the Report recommends that there is an urgent need to increase those members of groups that are currently under represented in higher education: "Those disadvantaged by the circumstances of their birth; indigenous people; people with low socioeconomic status and those from regional and remote areas" (p.xi). The focus of this paper is to consider how the Access and Success project at Victoria University in Melbourne is attempting to increase the representation of people from low socio-economic areas in higher and vocational education. Victoria University is located in the western suburbs of Melbourne, where there is a predominance of young people who are recent arrivals to Australia, whose first language is not English and/ or who typically have no family members participating in higher education. Victoria University of Technology was established in 1990 by the "Victoria University of Technology Act", a statute that put in place a strong social justice charter. From its inception Victoria University has developed detailed policies to implement its founding Act as well as to conform to Commonwealth and State legislation and policy guidelines on equal opportunity and human rights. (Contains 1 chart.)

As Provided

18

2011

ED524701