Focusing on access and participation for underrepresented students through community engagement: the potential of in-school enabling programs in Australia

Focusing on access and participation for underrepresented students through community engagement: the potential of in-school enabling programs in Australia

In this paper, we present preliminary findings from a small-scale exploratory study into in-school enabling programs in Australia. In-school enabling programs are defined as enabling programs offered during secondary education and are usually delivered in partnerships between universities and schools. This differs to the more common enabling (pathway or bridging) programs offered after students leave school. In-school enabling programs are used as an alternative pathway into undergraduate degrees upon successful completion and are specifically designed to support secondary students to successfully access and participate in higher education. Building on a mapping of programs and literature review, we interviewed university practitioners involved in these programs to develop insights on how in-school enabling programs are working with communities to help provide equitable access to university for underrepresented students. We aim to share these insights with the audience to reflect together about the links between university programs targeted at alleviating inequity of access for school leavers and the opportunities to utilise community engagement to foster inclusive practices in higher education.
The motivation for this study comes from our work in a newly developed in-school enabling program at the University of Southern Queensland. This program sits within a broader university-widening participation agenda focusing on providing equitable pathways responsive to the diversity of profiles among prospective students in the communities we serve. Through this focus, a particular group of students has been identified as overlooked within existing widening participation and equity initiatives. Namely, secondary students, especially from underrepresented backgrounds, who aspire to pursue higher education but are falling through the cracks of the education system. These students, for a variety of reasons, have either not taken an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) pathway or might be struggling to get the required scores within this mainstream pathway to university. In-school enabling programs are emerging across Australia as an alternative pathway for this identified group of students. However, research about these programs is still extremely scarce.
In bridging this gap, we make a direct link to the conference’s theme by placing equity of access and participation at the centre of our inquiry. Examining in-school enabling programs reveals vital questions about equity and inclusion. For instance, do these programs have the capacity to represent an equitable option for students who might otherwise not make it into higher education or are they simply ‘band-aids’ applied to a struggling education system that reveal much larger structural issues? There is also the question about ethical responsibility towards underrepresented groups. On one hand, responsibility is given to the university to work with communities to alleviate issues within the school system that in turn is dealing with issues in broader society. On the other hand, universities offering these programs probably benefit because they are creating their own pipeline of students in the neoliberal Australian higher education sector.
Practitioners interested in issues surrounding equity of access and participation for school leavers and programs targeted at this student cohort would benefit from taking part in this presentation.

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