Campus Review Vol 29. Issue 7 July 2019 | Page 6

news campusreview.com.au Professor Gary Foley. Photo: Graham Mark, NewsCorp. Archive opens eyes New project to challenge portrayal of Aboriginal Australia’s political past. T he political history of Aboriginal Australians is being reappraised and rewritten through Victoria University’s Aboriginal History Archive. Containing thousands of digitised and rare photos, videos, campaign ephemera, press clippings and manuscripts, the collection covers the self-determination movement that swept through Australia in the early 1970s. Importantly, by showing more optimistic aspects of Aboriginal political history, the collection challenges the dominant representations of Aboriginal people as powerless and exploited. “The AHA offers the material upon which the dominant version of post- invasion Australian history can be challenged, reappraised and rewritten. It contains the documentation not only of exploitation, repression and suffering, but also, more importantly, of Demand-driven dropouts Report questions demand-driven university model. T he demand-driven university system is having mixed results on student performance and outcomes, a new Productivity Commission report has found. While the report found the new system has increased student numbers – particularly students from low socioeconomic backgrounds – it highlighted higher dropout rates and concerns over student performance. The Productivity Commission used longitudinal studies and government data to track a cohort of students, aged 17–22, who could not have accessed university study before the introduction of the demand-driven system in 2009. The report found these “additional” students had a dropout rate of 22 per cent compared with the 12 per cent rate of other students. It also found this cohort entered university with lower literacy and numeracy levels, on average, and 73 per cent of the group had an ATAR below 70 or no ATAR at all. 4 Aboriginal struggle, confidence, pride and innovation,” said one of the archive’s chief investigators, Dr Edwina Howell. Howell also said that the AHA will enable “greater accuracy, understanding and validity in research and analysis in Australia’s Indigenous social, political and cultural activity than previously possible”. The archive forms the centre of VU’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research and is located within the Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit. Its name means to ‘embrace people’ in the Woiwurrung language of the Wurundjeri people. A lot of the content was gathered over the last 50 years by Professor Gary Foley, a VU academic and historian. He was a seminal figure during the self- determination movement and helped establish the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra. Other parts of the Archive have been collected by community groups and individuals. Plans have been mooted to turn the AHA into a targeted classroom where misrepresented chapters of Aboriginal history could be retaught and rewritten.  ■ The commission’s report gives weight to the argument that too many students are ill-equipped to be entering university while taking a swipe at the school sector. “Together with the long-term decline in literacy and numeracy of Australian school students, this means that far more students are entering university ill-prepared than was the case prior to the demand-driven system,” the report said. “The school system has arguably not adapted to the role needed of it to prepare more young people to succeed at university, or more broadly to meet the growing demand in the Australian economy for complex and adaptable skills. Average literacy and numeracy of school children needs to rise to fill this role, reversing the sharp falls since 2003.” The report also questions the growing popularity of university study and its applicability to all students. “University will not be the best option for many. Viable alternatives in employment and vocational education and training will ensure more young people succeed.” As reported by the ABC, Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson said the report needs qualification. “It seems to me the measures the Productivity Commission report has taken is they’re just looking at students under 22 years of age,” Jackson said. “If you just look at one of those groups, Indigenous students, a third of the Indigenous students who are studying in universities are over 30. And those numbers have doubled, by the way. So we’re not counting the right cohort.” Jackson also said that, overall, there has been a marked increase in students from low socioeconomic, rural and remote, and ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds.  ■