Address to the Australian Student Equity Symposium hosted by the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success

When I got this job three years ago I think I made it pretty clear what I thought the main game was.

And that’s opening the doors of our universities to more people like the kids I grew up with.

Kids who thought it wasn’t for them.

Most people nodded when I said it.

It’s hard not to.

It’s hard to argue against fairness.

It’s hard to argue that our education system is what it could be.

Think about it.

If you are a kid from a poor family today, you are less likely to make it to university.

You are less likely to make it to the end of high school.

You are more likely to start school behind or fall behind.

And you are less likely to go to pre-school or child care.

It’s all connected.

It’s the same if you grow up in the regions or the bush.

You might have been able to mount an argument fifty years ago that this sort of unfairness was OK given the sort of workforce we had then.

But not now. 

And not in the world our kids are going to inherit.

More and more jobs are going to require more and more skills.

And if a big group of Australians are locked out of that it won’t just hurt them. 

It will hurt us.

We will all be poorer. 

Because we will be part of an economy that can’t get out of second gear. 

That doesn’t have the people power it needs.

That’s basically what the Accord tells us.

That opening the doors of our universities wider isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s what we have to do.

What it says is that in 25 years, 80 percent of the workforce will need a tertiary qualification.

A certificate, a diploma or a degree.

Today it’s 60 percent.

Where do you think at extra 20 percent is going to come from? It’s not coming from Mosman or Toorak or Peppermint Grove.

Most people there already have a tertiary qualification.

It’s going to come from breaking down that invisible barrier that stops so many people in our outer suburbs and in our regions from getting to university in the first place, and then succeeding when they get there.

What this Centre talks about all the time – access and success.

And that requires reform to the entire education system.

We took the first steps in the Budget last year.

And I remember speaking at this conference just a week later.

In that budget were the first bits of the Accord we bit off.

One of those was making it easier for people who aren’t ready to do a uni degree to get ready.

We are doing that by massively expanding funding for what we sometimes call Enabling Courses – those free bridging courses that give you the skills you need to do a uni degree.

Last year I mentioned what Newcastle University does here. 

They have been doing this for 51 years.
 
About one in five people who start a degree at Newcastle have done one of these courses first.

And I told you the story of Jennifer Baker, the single mum who saw an ad for one of these courses in the local paper and is now a Fulbright Scholar.

Here’s a couple more examples.

Roy Turner dropped out of school in year 10. 

He became a fitter and machinist and worked in the oil and gas industry.

When COVID hit, he lost his job. 

That’s when his fiancée said to him, ‘Why don’t you do one of these free courses?’ 

He did and now he’s doing a degree in medical engineering.

Here’s another.

Zee Johnson did one of these free courses at the age of 48 when she was on a carer’s pension, looking after her husband, who’d had a stroke.

Now she has got a degree in Biomedical Science.

This year she completed an honours degree in Ovarian Cancer Research.

Next is a PhD.

From a pension to a PhD.

If you want to know what uncapping funding for these free courses means, it means about an extra billion over the next ten years.

More than that, what it really means is more people like Roy and Zee at university.

In that Budget last year was also Paid Prac.

It’s the first time the Australian Government has done this. 

And it’s about another $1.4 billion over the next ten years.

It’s means tested. 

Targeted at people who need it the most. 

Targeted at placement poverty.

I was here at UTS last year to talk about this and I met a midwifery student named Clare, and this is what she told the media that day:

“I’m a first-year mature age midwifery student. 

This payment is going to be absolutely life-changing for me.

As a mother of two small children, I’m often balancing between practical work, placement and looking after my babies. 

There are literally some days where I’m doing 16 hour days between my study and my work and looking after my children.

I cannot wait for this payment to be available for myself and other future mature-age students who might also want to enrol in this course who previously couldn’t financially afford it.”

That’s why we are doing this. 

For people like Clare. 

And now it’s started. 

It started on 1 July and already more than 30,000 people have applied.

In the last 12 months we have also begun the roll out of more university study hubs, in the regions and the suburbs.

And there is more to come in the next few months.

I told you last year when we were at Bankstown what it meant to have the word university on a building in a place like where I grew up.

The message it sends is that kids from there belong at university. That it’s for them too.

I was in Broadmeadows in the northern suburbs of Melbourne a few weeks ago and I opened a hub there with the team from La Trobe.

And there was a law student there called Tori. 

She talked about her family. How her dad didn’t even finish year nine.

And how it would take her two hours to get to uni by bus.

Not any more. 

Now it’s a ten-minute walk away.

And this is what she said: 

“It makes me feel like my university wants me to study. … 

And it makes me feel really seen. … 

And also I feel really safe here. 

And being able to study and feel safe just lets my confidence and my concentration peak.”

That’s what hubs like this do. 

They save you time. 

They save you money. 

They make it easier to get to your part time job after uni.

They make it easier for people to go back and study after you have had kids too.

At Broadmeadows there is a child care centre next door, and the busiest time at the hub is after the kids have been dropped off.

They make people like Tori feel like they belong.

All of that, the bridging courses, the Paid Prac, the Study Hubs, have started to roll out this year.

We have also done something else this year. 

We have quadrupled the amount of funding to help more students with a disability to access and participate in higher education.

That is significant.

In the last 12 months we have also done something else that hasn’t happened before.

We have signed agreements with every State and Territory to finally fully fund every public school in the country.

Not everything we are trying to fix can be fixed at the university gate.

As I said earlier we have got to reform the entire education system.

And this is the big one.

If we want more Australians to take on a university degree we need more to finish school. 

Again, the problem isn’t everywhere. 

In independent and Catholic schools, completion rates are high and are either stable or going up. 

It’s in our public schools where the real challenge is.

And where a lot of the heavy lifting happens. 

In the last decade the percentage of young people finishing high school has dropped in public schools from about 83 percent to as low as 73 percent. 

The agreements I have signed are about turning this around. 

It’s a $16 billion investment over the next ten years. And it’s about triple that in the decade after that. 

And it’s not a blank cheque. It’s tied to reform.

I said these are schools where the heavy lifting happens. 

The schools that play an outsized role in educating some of the most disadvantaged children in this country. 

Children who we know are more likely to start behind or fall behind. Through no fault of their own. 

This funding is tied to reforms to help them catch up, keep up and help more young people finish school. 

Things like evidenced-based teaching.

Like phonics checks and numeracy checks in Year 1 to identify kids who need additional help.

And then making sure they get the help they need through more individualised support, things like small group tutoring.

This is a historic moment with all States and Territories signed up. 

To help us now in the task of making this real, implementing the reforms and hitting the targets we have agreed to, I have written to my State and Territory colleagues proposing that we consider bringing together the work that:

•    the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority;
•    the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership;
•    the Australian Education Research Organisation; and 
•    Education Services Australia

do, under one roof.

I am proposing we consider a new Teaching and Learning Commission that would maintain and protect the critical work that these organisations do, and improve coordination. 

But in addition to that, help us to implement the reforms and hit the targets we are all committed to. 

And oversee and drive the reforms we are making to initial teacher education to help build the workforce we need and raise esteem for what I think is the most important job in the world. 

It’s something I am going to put on the table for education ministers to talk about when we meet next month. 

Earlier this year we also did something else. 

We know children disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to start school behind other children. 

We also know they are less likely to go to early education and care than other children. 

One of the reasons for that is the Activity Test. 

This is a test that stops children from some of the poorest families in the country from getting the Child Care Subsidy. 

The reason is because their parents don’t work enough hours or aren’t studying. 

The result is their kids miss out. 

That ends at the start of next year. 

From the 1st of January next year the Activity Test goes and gets replaced with a three-day guarantee. 

Three days a week access to the Child Care Subsidy for every child who needs it. 

No one blinks when you say every child has a right to go to school and government has a responsibility to help fund it.

The same has got to be true today for early education.  

That doesn’t mean it should be compulsory, but it should be there for every parent who wants it and every child who needs it.

To help make sure they start school ready to go. Ready to learn.

That’s the sort of change that changes lives. 

It’s the next step in building a universal early education system. 

And if we get that right anything is possible. 

Now let me take you back to university and what comes next.

Next year we start to turn on the big equity engines in the Accord. 

Next year Needs Based Funding starts. 

Think Gonski for universities.

The school funding system provides schools with extra funding based on where they are located and the needs of the students they educate.

Students who come from economically disadvantaged families receive additional support. 

So do schools in the regions and the bush.

At the moment we have programs like HEPPP that provide funding for extra student support.

This is different.

This isn’t a capped program.

It’s demand driven.

The money follows the student.

The more students a university has that meet the criteria the more funding they will receive.

The more students there are at regional unis, the more funding those unis will receive as well.

That starts next year.  Just a couple of months away.

The year after that, in 2027, a new type of demand driven system starts.

Last year we brought back a demand driven system for Indigenous students.

It doesn’t mean university is free.

But does mean if you get the marks for the course you want to do you will get a place at university.

It started last year and it’s already having a positive impact.

Indigenous enrolments were up about five percent last year. 

And another three percent this year.

Over the next 10 years we think it could double the number of Indigenous students at university.

The next step is to do the same sort of thing for students from other disadvantaged backgrounds.

Effectively a demand driven system for all students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Now think about these two things working together. 

A demand driven system for disadvantaged students to get them in, and demand driven needs based funding to get them through. 

Help to get in and help to get through. 

Access and success. 

I expect to introduce legislation to do it next year. 

And the new Australian Tertiary Education Commission, that we will also put into law, will drive it. 

I hope you can see then that there is a bit happening. 

And that my focus hasn’t shifted.

I still think this is the main game. 

And I know that there is still a lot more to do. 

But we have made a start. 

And we have got a chance in the next few years to cement in all of this and build on it. 

Build a better and a fairer education system. 

And a better and a fairer country too. 

And the work you Shamit and your team do is a critical part of that, and I thank you for it, and I am so very, very grateful that you have invited me back to speak to you today.