The Universities Accord has the clear purpose of boosting equity

University of Western Sydney vice-chancellor Barney Glover. Picture: Jonathan Ng

With the Australian Universities Accord, our nation nears a juncture of generational reform. It’s a precious opportunity. The list of successful educational reforms is mighty, but short.

Prime ministers Curtin and Chifley directed universities towards reconstruction. Menzies amplified their application to the national interest. Whitlam made education free. Hawke and Keating massified the system. These were nation-changing moments, all of them.

There are two commonalities across those successful reforms.

First, each of them focused on catalysing benefits beyond university gates. They drove the development of new industries, fuelled greater productivity, improved wellbeing, civic participation and social outcomes. They were macro, not micro, approaches that encouraged universities to extend themselves.

Second, they each rallied around a singular vision. For Curtin and Chifley, the imperative was recovery. For Menzies, utility. For Whitlam, access. For Hawke and Keating, scale. That singularity contrasts with the many failed attempts at higher education reform. Unsuccessful reforms usually lacked an anchoring purpose, a theme from which to extend the necessary legislative architecture.

Put simply, for reforms to land, people need an easily understandable reason to believe.

The Universities Accord panel chaired by Professor Mary O’Kane – of which I am a member – is acutely conscious of the imperative to balance focus and scope. We were fortunate to have that clarity from the outset.

In announcing the accord, Education Minister Jason Clare was unequivocal. “I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on your postcode, your parents, or the colour of your skin.” Nobody should underestimate how fundamental that is to the accord’s trajectory.

The minister is not talking about equity as a “nice to have”; a bolt-on to larger reforms. Equity is at the heart of the accord. It is – in his view – the principle giving the reforms their social, cultural, and economic heft. And it permeates the “priority actions” of the accord panel’s interim report.

Where progress has been achieved, the panel seeks to build on it. The first priority action recommends a metropolitan adaptation and rural expansion of Regional University Centres. These facilities have made significant inroads in higher education access and support for communities remote from traditional campus access.

My own institution, Western Sydney University, has decided – regardless of the eventual outcomes of the accord – to embark on such a centre in Fairfield. This is an area of Sydney’s west with among the lowest rates of educational attainment in the country. On an equity rationale, the choice of Fairfield is clear. But there is much more to the decision, and herein lies the wider logic of the approach the accord promotes.

To maintain and intensify its global competitiveness, the Australian economy must grow its skills base.

Currently, around 26 per cent of adult Australians have a university qualification. By 2050, a BIS Economics study asserts, that proportion needs to be 55 per cent.

The quickest and most effective way to make that skills leap is to target the gaps. At Fairfield, just on 12 per cent of residents hold a degree. Accelerating skills attainment there, one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions, not only addresses the gap, it transforms lives.

If proof were needed, travel just 45 minutes up the road from Fairfield. In North Sydney around 60 per cent of residents have a university qualification. Higher rates of educational attainment in these leafy suburbs correlate with higher incomes, improved health and housing outcomes, reduced crime and greater civic participation.

The remaining interim accord priority actions address other barriers to educational uplift for people in socio-economic disadvantage. Such as the push to scrap the rule that disenrols students not achieving sufficient pass results. That makes sense when we know how cost of living and other pressures can significantly impede academic performance.

Other priorities write themselves. In the year of the voice referendum, how can we not guarantee every First Nations student is eligible for a fully funded spot at university?

The remaining two priority actions seek the funding certainty and governance frameworks needed for universities to deliver the accord’s ambitious equity mission.

Consultation on the interim report is open until September 1. The education sector, industry and community groups have proven critical in getting the process this far.

But, as history has shown, for the accord to truly succeed, something special is needed. These reforms must capture opportunities for Australia above and beyond traditional perceptions of our universities.

Achieving that would deliver more than a step change in higher education. It would be a leap for a nation that understands true innovation and prosperity can’t occur without fairness and a commitment to social good.

Barney Glover is vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University and a member of the Australian Universities Accord panel.