Foreword and Acknowledgements

Foreword

This report into transitioning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students into Australia's higher education system is timely. Despite significant effort and public policy attention, Australia's tertiary education institutions attract Indigenous students at alarmingly low rates. In addition there is a disproportionate high Indigenous dropout rate from universities and places of higher learning as well as comparatively low levels of achievement.

This negative overview does not diminish the commendable achievements of many Indigenous people across Australia who have gained tertiary education qualifications and professional skills in recent decades. But the data outlined in this report speaks for itself. Much more must be done in the vital area of Indigenous participation and achievement in higher education if the shocking economic and social disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is to be overcome at the national level.

The strength of this report is that it captures the findings of previous reviews and turns them into plans for action. It reveals a host of partnerships, strategies, and new pathways that have been developed within the past three years to enhance the transition of Indigenous students to higher education. Fundamentally this report bases much of its direction on the 2012 Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. The report identifies best practice action and policies for tertiary eductaion institutions to embrace Indigenous students onto their campuses so that they graduate with formal qualifications that has the potential to immeasuarably improve their lives and the lives of their families and communities.

The fourteen elements of leading practice which the report proposes as a framework can be used by Indigenous Educators working with Vice Chancellors, Deans and Heads of Schools to transform the old paradigm of assumed Indigenous deficit in need of support to enhancing Indigenous excellence and opportunity by working with people's assets and strengths.

This report can therefore be seen as a blue print for action. Its' intended audience are those who have influence and make decisions about Indigenous education at every level of universities and places of higher learning ranging from Indigenous educators within Indigenous Education Units to Vice Chancellors. The report also has relevance for policy makers within governments for the right public policy settings are fundamentally important to support the much needed work within universities.

A key element of the report has resonance with a larger story about the Australian nation reconciling its relationship with its First Peoples. The position of Indigenous students at universities should not be ghettoised with policies and practices that entrench victimisation and under-achievement. This report identifies the emergence of ground breaking initiatives being implemented at leading Australian universities led by senior Indigenous educators working in new ways through partnerships and strengthened governance to ensure that responsibility for Indigenous education is everybody's business.

Professor Patrick Dodson (Adjunct Professor – UNDA)

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Office for Learning and Teaching for making this project possible and for its ongoing support and advice during the life of the project. We would also like to thank the many people working in numerous capacities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student support who took part in the research, and also the students who did likewise. A number of other Key Aboriginal people with extensive experience in universities contributed to our understandings through informal conversations and testing our findings. We would like to thank members of the Indigenous Reference Group convened for this project who included Ms Sandra Brogden, Ms Erica Bernard, Mr Frank Pearce, Ms Sharon Davis and Ms Jane Weston. We would especially like to thank the project's reference group; Paul Chandler University of Wollongong (UOW); and Ainslie Robinson (UNDA). Many thanks also to Dr Bronte Somerset and Richard Parker.