campusreview.com.au
internAtiOnAL educAtiOn
Access the advantage
Helping qualified foreign
students who lack great wealth
earn degrees in Australia will
have benefits for our sector.
By Christopher Ziguras
I
t is just over 25 years since the publication of the landmark report
on equitable access to Australian higher education, A Fair Chance
for All, which examined participation rates and barriers to entry for
a range of groups: people from low socioeconomic backgrounds;
Indigenous Australians; people from regional and remote areas;
women in non-traditional areas; people with disabilities; and people
from non-English speaking backgrounds. The authors’ ambition
was “to improve participation in higher education of people from
socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds so that the mix
of commencing students more closely resembles the mix of the
general population”.
Understandably, the population being considered was the
resident population of Australia, and the aspiration that higher
education should be within “everyone’s reach” refers only to
Australian citizens and permanent residents. That is a reasonable
approach for a national government that is elected, and funded, by
a national political community and which has designed a national
higher education system to serve that community.
A quarter century later, however, our higher education system
serves a far larger population. A quarter of our students come from
outside this national community