Education Minister Pledges to Increase Tertiary Places for Students from Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds

Canberra Times, 10 March 2009; Sydney Morning Herald, 10 March 2009; Sydney Morning Herald, 10 March 2009; The Australian, 11 March 2009

The Australian Government Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Ms Julia Gillard, has announced that she intends to ‘pursue vigorously’ a goal to ensure that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have access to higher education.

Ms Gillard stated that she wanted 20 per cent of the university undergraduate intake to come from disadvantaged backgrounds by 2020, including poor, indigenous and rural students.

She informed a conference that ‘equality of opportunity always has and always must be a central Australian value…when the recovery does come we will need to ensure that everyone is able to fill the increasing opportunities presented by an expanding economy.’

Ms Gillard also informed the conference that such a move would only be possible if parental attitudes to tertiary study changed and stated that every school ‘must make it its business to overcome the disadvantages a child brings to the classroom’.

Representatives of universities, such as the Pro Vice-Chancellor at The University of Melbourne, also argued that attempts to increase the proportion of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds attending university would be ‘a stretch’ without changes in schools.

 

 

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