NEWS
campusreview.com.au
USYD alumni build ‘girl boss’ network
(From left) Honey Debelle, Adriana Stefanatos and Nina Khoury. Photo: ENID Network
An all-female networking
platform for young women
is proving popular.
Y
ou probably wouldn't follow your
careers adviser on Snapchat, but you
might friend ENID Network. Sydney
University graduates Nina Khoury (commerce
and law) and Adriana Stefanatos (commerce)
created the network: an all-female careers
advice and networking platform for high
school and university students.
Instead of content-heavy formats or
one-on-one interviews, they deliver
messages like Uni hacks: Top tips & tricks
for your first year at uni via their website,
YouTube channel and social media
accounts. They also run school mentoring
workshops and host on-campus events,
where students are matched with “girl
bosses” in their chosen fields.
One such event, ENID x NOW, was held
Attrition
stats
released
The latest national dropout rates for first-
year students show a disparity between
universities and private providers.
T
he who, where and why of higher education attrition
have been revealed by the Tertiary Education Quality and
Standards Agency (TEQSA), the higher education regulator.
Its report details the latest dropout rates (from 2014) for first-year
students from 130 providers.
on June 1 at the University of Sydney. At
a collaboration between ENID and the
university’s Network of Women, students
and alumni aged 24–28 gathered together
for mentoring and networking.
"They’re girls who you could probably go
and get a coffee with, but they’re also going
to be your role models," Khoury said, in
explaining her choice of mentors.
"We know that networking can be quite
scary," Stefanatos added. "We didn't want it
to be like that."
When Khoury and Stefanatos, both
former Network of Women members,
found that its services didn't extend beyond
the campus perimeters, ENID Network
was born. It was named after co-founder
Khoury’s great-great aunt, Enid Lyons, who
was the first woman to be elected to the
Australian House of Representatives in 1943,
and the Federal Cabinet in 1949.
Stefanatos said one of the most gratifying
elements of her new, full-time gig was
getting positive feedback from school girls.
"They've said thinks like, 'Thank you,
you've given me hope', or 'Thank you,
you've inspired me to continue math in
Years 11 and 12'." ■
The University of Melbourne retained its shiny credentials with
an attrition rate of 10 per cent, while the University of Tasmania
bottomed out with a rate of 32 per cent.
Richard James, a University of Melbourne professor of higher
education, previously criticised providers with high attrition rates,
calling them “aggressive recruiters”. He claimed they had higher
attrition rates because “the value proposition is not quite there for
students”.
UTAS’s figures, however, weren’t as bad as those of some private
providers, which had rates of 40 per cent.
Overall, however, public universities came out reputationally on
top: their rates averaged 20 per cent, with non-university providers
trailing at 28 per cent.
There was overlap in terms of factors associated with attrition
among types of providers: fewer postgrads and more external
students largely featured across the board.
There were also differences: public university withdrawals
correlated with lower full-time student numbers, students
admitted on VET qualifications, and senior staff making up a
lower proportion of academics. By contrast, poor progress rates
influenced attrition in small culture and society providers, whereas
younger students were a salient cause in internationally focused
mid-size providers.
But who is dropping out? Earlier research by the National Centre
for Student Equity in Higher Education revealed that university
completion rates were lower for Indigenous, part-time, external,
remote, low-SES and older (over 25) students.
TEQSA seemingly begs to differ, though its study only relates to first-
years and covers a spectrum of higher education, not just universities. ■
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