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Indigenous university student success in 2013

By Joe Lane - posted Wednesday, 30 July 2014


Federal Education Department statistics just out show that Indigenous university commencements, continuations, enrolments and graduations all hit new record levels in 2013:

  • Commencements: up 7.7 % from 2012, to a record 6,275 students
  • Continuations: up a massive 10.2 % to a record 7,506 students
  • Enrolments: up 9.1 % to a record 13,781 students
  • Graduations: up more than 14 % to a record 1859 graduates.

A full database, going back twenty years, is available at www.firstsources.info on the Twenty-First Century page.

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Analysis of Successes

Commencements [Table 1]

In 2013, commencements in degree-level and post-graduate courses were up 8.9 %, overwhelmingly in mainstream courses. Overall, Indigenous student commencements rose a healthy 7.7 % from 2012, to a total of 6,275, and a very healthy 8.9 % in degree- and post-graduate level commencements, with an extremely healthy rise of 11.9 % in bachelor commencements. In fact, bachelor commencements have almost doubled – 94.1% - since the disastrous years of 2004-5. This has occurred in spite of the trend away from Indigenous-focussed degree enrolments.

About 1.6 % of all Australian domestic commencements were Indigenous in 2013, a record 6,275 students. Of these, nearly a thousand enrolled for the first time in a new post-graduate course (award). About another 1,100 enrolled in a sub-degree or non-award course, such as a Bridging Course. Of the four thousand or so remainder, perhaps five hundred either transferred from one award, or award code, to another, or were on their second or later under-graduate award. So about three and a half thousand Indigenous people enrolled for the first time at universities in 2013 across Australia, almost all at degree-level.

To put these numbers into perspective, one needs to bear in mind that the median age of Indigenous commencing students in 2013 was around 24 or 25 – those equivalent age-groups, born in 1987-1988, numbered around nine to ten thousand, so this is a crude measure of participation: roughly 35-40 % of the equivalent age-group enrolled at universities for the first time in 2013.

19 % of all commencements in 2013 were at post-graduate level, now up to 989 – since 2005, annual post-graduate commencements have risen 92 %. Degree+ commencements have doubled since 2001.

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On the other hand, commencements at diploma- and sub-degree-level have declined from around 900 in 1999, to 300 in 2013. Most Indigenous-focussed courses were at these levels. Declines in such commencements may have had a negative impact on male commencements as well.

Trend-line since 2005: an annual increase of 7.8 % p.a.

Continuations [Table 2]

'Continuations' include students who have taken a year or more off, and then returned to study. The one-year rise in this key variable has been better than 10.2 %, 13.4 % at post-graduate level. Even more significant has been the rise in master's-level continuations – a massive 27.7 %, to a total of 686 students. In fact, the number of students continuing master's-level courses has risen an amazing 128 % since 2006.

This surge in continuing student numbers suggests that graduate numbers will increase substantially from 2014 onwards.

Trend-line since 2005: an annual increase of 6 % p.a.

Enrolments [Table 3]

In 2013, a total of 13,781 Indigenous students were enrolled in university courses across the country, an increase of 9.1 % over 2012, and 64.7 % better than 2005. 96 % of all award-level enrolments were at degree- and post-graduate-level. Total enrolments approached the equivalent of one and a half age-groups.

Conversely, the numbers of Indigenous students enrolled in sub-degree-level courses has plummeted since 2005 by more than 70 %. In 2013, fewer than 2 % of all Indigenous students were enrolled in sub-degree courses. Indigenous-focussed courses tend to be at sub-degree level.

Trend-line since 2005: an annual increase of 6.4 % p.a.

Graduations [Table 4]

1,859 Indigenous students graduated in 2013, almost all (97.7 %) at degree-level or above, and the equivalent of nearly 20 % of a relevant age-group. Although, of course, 'graduations' is a lag-factor, the total for 2013 is better than 54 % above that of 2005. More than seventeen thousand Indigenous students have now graduated since 2000.

Post-graduate completions doubled between 2005 and 2013. Some 4,377 Indigenous students have graduated at post-graduate level since 2000.

Two-thirds of all graduates were women and the gender disparity is very slowly increasing.

Trend-line since 2005: an annual increase of 5.57 % p.a.

Trend-line since 2009: an annual increase of 7.2 % p.a.

Total graduate numbers [Table 4]

Total graduate numbers are now about thirty six thousand, out of an adult population (20-49 years) of about 250,000, i.e. one in every seven adults. Two-thirds are women, so about one in every five Indigenous women is a university graduate - one in every four in the cities. 12-14 % held post-graduate qualifications.

Education Department and ABS Census figures commonly disagree, with the five-yearly ABS Census figures – which now include TAFE award-level graduations - usually around 10 % higher than the Eduation Department figures, which count all graduations while the ABS figures count only the highest level attained. So, compared with ABS figures, Education Department figures may under-estimate annual graduations by as much as 30 %.

Retention and Attrition [Taable 5]

Retention rates are confused by the phenomenon of students taking a year or more off, and then returning as 'continuing students'.

For all award-level students, retention has hovered between 73 and 82 % since 2006, with a slight fall in 2011 to 73.3 % and a healthy rise to 77 % in 2012. Generally, the higher the level of course, the better the retention rate. As well, some courses have much more status and consequently better retention rates. Factors leading to lower retention rates seem to be: lower-level courses, lower-status courses, external study, part-time study and a reliance on Indigenous-focussed courses.

Retention rates have improved by some 7 % since 2000, from a crude average of about 72 % to 77 % in 2012.

Gender Data [Table 6]

Indigenous women consistently enrol and graduate at twice the rate of Indigenous men. This has been the situation since data have been available. In fact, since the demise of sub-degree courses in the years 2000-2005, the share of male participation has declined.

Similarly, the share of male continuations has declined significantly, from a high of 37.3 % back in 1995, down to barely 33 % in 2012 and 2013. So the male share of total enrolments has also declined. Clearly, universities' publicity and recruitment programs need to focus more on encouraging male students coming through secondary schools, and young Indigenous men, to lift their sights and to enrol in tertiary courses, and thereby to provide them with more positive pathways.

Indigenous women in Australia are commencing tertiary study at about the same rate at non-Indigenous men, and at about 90 % of the rate of non-Indigenous women. 2 % of all Australian women commencing university study in 2013 were Indigenous.

Fields of Study [Table 11]

Enrolments:

Indigenous students are very much under-represented in Maths- and Science-oriented firlds, but this is compensated by higher enrolments in Arts, Social Science, Health and Education awards.

For all that, more than three thousand Indigenous students have enrolled in courses in Natural and Physical Sciences, and in Agricultural and Environmental scinces since 2001. This pales somehat beside the ten thousand or so enrolling in Education, and in Health, courses. All up, more than fifty nine thousand Indigenous students enrolled from 2001 up to 2013.

Enrolments in Health courses increased by 117 % from 2004, but in Education courses by only 33%. This reflects the shift in teaching from three-year to four year courses, and the attraction of alternatives such as Law, and the fact that, on the one hand, Nursing is still usually only a three-year course, and on the other hand, the great work being done by universities such as Newcastle in recruiting and preparing students for Medicine and other high-status courses.

Aboriginal-focussed courses are subsumed under the heading of 'Society and Culture': enrolments in that vast portmanteau term increased by 61 % between 2004 and 2013, while total award-level enrolments increased by 57 % in the same time. The data are not differentiated eough, but it could be surmised that enrolments in Law very likely more than doubled in that time.

Graduations:

While total graduations improved by 54 % over the period 2004-2013, the number of graduations in Agriculture and Environmental Sciences actually fell – total graduates in the Sciences grew from a pathetic 70 to a not-quite-so-pathetic 114, and totalled just over a thousand since 2001. In 2013, 427 Indigenous students graduates from Health courses, and 354 from Education courses, almost all at degree-level and above.

Total Graduations:

Since 2001, about 3,800 Indigenous students have graduated in each of the Health and Education fields. In fact, a total around eight thousand Indigenous students have graduated in Education awards since 1980.

Conclusion

The Indigenous population is rapidly differentiating into two populations, one oriented to work and the other to welfare, and this is reflected across the spectrum of Education, especially in compulsory school education: in the cities, amongst the working population, one could hazard that performance and Year 12 completion rates are not too different from those of non-Indigenous students. But, as we know from report after report, education in remote areas, with very few adults working in real jobs, children are being shockingly short-changed in terms even of bare literacy and numeracy and are leaving school even more unemployable than their parents. Clearly a huge task awaits dedicated staff in remote schools.

But at universities, by comparison, success has been phenomenal. Of their own volition, some 120,000 Indigenous adults have, at some time since 1980, enrolled in university courses, overwhelmingly in mainstream courses. Of course, some universities have done a much better job of publicising, recruiting, preparing and supporting Indigenous students than others.

But that's the subject of another paper.

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About the Author

Joe Lane is an independent researcher with a long-standing passion for Indigenous involvement at universities and its potential for liberation. Originally from Sydney, he worked in Indigenous tertiary support systems from 1981 until the mid-90s and gained lifelong inspiration from his late wife Maria, a noted leader in SA Indigenous education.

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