Transformations in Indigenous higher education

There are now around 25,000 Indigenous graduates across the country. Almost two-thirds are female. Close to 6,000 are teachers. There are now very few fields in which Indigenous people have not graduated - yet.

Conclusion

Clearly, tertiary study has been an amazing success story for Indigenous people in Australia, thanks particularly to the courage and dedication of Indigenous women. Student support services have made all the difference over the past 30 years, boosting Indigenous graduate numbers - and people’s careers - from a few hundred to tens of thousands.

However, for a large section of the Indigenous population, tertiary study is becoming more inaccessible, as lower-level awards are phased out and support staff are co-opted into the teaching of Indigenous Studies to non-Indigenous students. Indigenous people in welfare environments, with relatively poor education and/or remote from tertiary education centres, are being progressively shut out from participation, just at a time when lifelong welfare is being questioned as an option. Support services at universities will have to be re-constituted if all Indigenous people are to have the opportunities that are now available for the urban student population who matriculate.

Given their low economies of scale, Indigenous communities desperately need huge numbers of skilled personnel, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, in all trades and professions. Indigenous people in remote communities desperately need the opportunities to gain the skills that might help them participate in the Australian economy and to contribute to Australian life. Tertiary education has to be one option among many, and pathways must be re-initiated to make all of those options possible. Student support services must be strengthened at universities, and kept independent of teaching schools, to give the next generation opportunities that the past generation has used so effectively.