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Caps off to opportunity
Educators back finding that restoring limits on university placements would unfairly cut access to university. By Antonia Maiolo
A
Grattan Institute report has found it would be a“ policy tragedy” to recap university places.
The government is considering ending the demanddriven system by limiting public university enrolments, which would cut costs. But in the report, Keep the Caps Off!, the Grattan Institute’ s higher education director, Andrew Norton, argues that recapping university places would make Australia’ s higher education system less fair, less efficient and less productive.
“ Putting caps back on the higher education system would hit the people who miss out hard,” Norton said. He added that many students who did get a place would also be worse off because they would be“ less likely” to be able to enrol in their preferred course or university.
The report found a strong link between socioeconomic status( SES) and ATAR scores. It also demonstrated that a minimum score for entry would reduce the number of students with low- SES backgrounds entering university. Applicants with high SES dominated the 80-plus ATAR group, whilst low-SES students outnumbered high ones amongst school leavers with ATARs below 60. But the review determined that a set minimum of 60 for school leavers wanting to enter university would be“ unfair” because more than half of students with a score below that mark successfully complete a qualification and the cut-off would exclude them.
From 2009-13, offers to school leavers with ATARs below 60 increased by 86 per cent as a result of the removal of enrolment caps, the report states. And Norton’ s analysis showed that most of the students entering with low ATARs completed a degree within seven years.
The chair of the Regional Universities Network( RUN), professor David Battersby, said Keep the Caps Off! echoed the network’ s concerns that recapping would limit the number of disadvantaged students able to attend university.
He explained that maintaining the demand-driven system was important in order to expand the rate of participation in higher education in regional Australia, where it is about half that of capital cities, and where many students are of low SES, are first in family to go to university, or both.
Acting vice-chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology professor Jennelle Kyd said the demand-driven system had also made it possible for institutions to deliver education in new ways. For example, the report pointed out that Swinburne could not have created Swinburne Online under the old system of Commonwealth-supported places.
As the Grattan report explains,“ Swinburne would have needed to go through a slow political process to get new places, with no recent precedent for such a large number of new students at a single institution.” n
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See“ Minimum resistance”, page 6. www. campusreview. com. au Issue 8 2013 | 5