VC's comment

City universities that teach in the bush deserve a financial pat on the back
Taken from The Australian newspaper, 13 February 2008.

In 2000 the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission enquired into education in rural and remote Australia. It found that country children suffered "substantial disadvantage" that amounted to "discrimination". Richer families were able to overcome the problems of geographical location by sending their children to boarding school and city universities. Parents who were not wealthy were not able to meet the costs of relocating their children to the cities.

People in regional Australia suffer a shameful educational disadvantage; they have a university participation rate of 18 per cent in contrast to the metropolitan university participation rate of 28 per cent.

This disadvantage and discrimination is getting worse as students are expected to meet a bigger share of the costs of their own post compulsory education. In the boom state of Western Australia, this situation has become more acute because accommodation rental prices have soared and now exceed the national average.

At 18 per cent, the university participation rate in regional Australia lags behind Argentina at 21.4 per cent, Korea (21.9 per cent) and Israel (19.5 per cent). This scandalous performance sits alongside a much publicised shortage of nurses, teachers, doctors, accountants, engineers and urban planners in country areas. Without the education and provision of key services professionals, there will be no future for these disadvantaged places.

Some Australian universities deliver higher education to the regions. Many of these universities are not located in rural Australia. They are city-based universities struggling to ensure that all Australians, regardless of geographical location and finances, have access to higher education.

All the evidence shows that people educated in regional areas remain there and yet the barriers to delivering higher education outside the metropolitan area are immense.

The cost of delivering university education in the regions is, on average, more than 30 per cent higher than delivery in the metropolitan area. Western Australia, the largest state, does not have a regional university outside its capital city such as the University of New England in NSW or James Cook University in Queensland. All West Australian universities deliver education to the regions and yet they are classified as metropolitan universities based on the location of their main campus.

The city universities not only educate regional and remote students, they make important economic, social and cultural contributions to the regions in which they operate. They purchase local services and employ local people. They often build infrastructure and provide research and consultancy expertise.

Curtin University is an example of a metropolitan university serving disparate and far-flung regional communities in WA. In addition to campuses at Kalgoorlie, Margaret River and Northam, the University serves the needs of communities in Port Hedland, Karratha, Geraldton and Esperance through its local education centres. Mainly these centres produce graduates in business, education and nursing. To date, Curtin has had 100 percent retention of graduates in the regions: they learn there, they stay there and they work there.

Curtin’s regional graduates build regional capacity and a sustainable future. However, our capacity to service students in the regions is threatened by the commonwealth funding model which ignores the substantial costs incurred by a metropolitan university delivering education to regional and remote areas.

The federal funding model developed by the Howard government does not recognise the significant cost and difficulties for universities committed to serving regional Australia. Small classes, high proportions of part-time students, higher construction costs and requirements for staff travel, the need for information technology infrastructure and support services drive up the cost of regional delivery.

The commonwealth knows that it costs more to deliver higher education to regional Australia. These costs have been acknowledged for Charles Darwin University, which receives a30 per cent regional loading. In contrast, a city-based university such as Curtin gets a 5 per cent loading despite the fact that it services more than 1200 regional students, some of which are located 1650km from its main campus.

A review of the funding model for regional delivery is urgently needed. Labour’s election promise was "to provide more opportunities for students from regional areas to attend university" but so far its strategy appears limited to increasing the number of Commonwealth Learning Scholarships and accommodation bursaries. Although constructive, this will not address the needs of working people in the regions, the needs of the mature-aged or the needs of those who wish to continue to live in their communities. The strategy may in fact accelerate the drain from the regions to the city and directly work against the Government’s aim of building sustainable communities for the future.

Labor’s education revolution will be put to the test in Australia’s mining towns and outback communities. As part of the Rudd Government’s education revolution for Australia and its promise to "build the nation and the regions", a positive first step would be to acknowledge the challenges facing universities with a commitment to regional Australia, and fund them appropriately.