Mass Indigenous university education - a game-changer?

Indigenous people experienced record participation in university education in 2009, improving 10%in one year, to ten and a half thousand enrolments. Commencements actually improved by 12% to more than 4,800, boosted by an 18% improvement in male commencements. These commencements mean that the equivalent of about 40% of the median age-group commenced university study in 2009.

Indigenous Participation of Median Age-Groups

[Source: DEST/DEEWR Higher Education Statistical Collections, 1996-2010]

Since 1990, around seventy thousand Indigenous people have been enrolled at some time or other at university, about a quarter of the entire adult population.

As a percentage of the adult population (about 240,000 Indigenous people are aged between 20 and 59, but it was probably more like 200,000 back in 1995), they would look like this:

Indigenous Participation as percentage of the Indigenous Adult Population (aged 20-59)

[Source: DEST/DEEWR Higher Education Statistical Collections, 1996-2010]

We could also look at these figures in terms of relevant age-groups: the size of the median age-group in 2009 (around 24-26 years, i.e. born in 1982-1984) was about 8,000. In fact, the size of the median age-group did not increase much between 2000 and 2009, it fluctuated between 7,500 and 8,000, but will rise dramatically between now and 2015.

Indigenous Participation as percentage of Median Age-Groups