Our UniReady Enabling Program supports you on your journey to a degree at UTS

The UniReady Enabling Program is a free academic program specifically developed for  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and/or students who have experienced financial disadvantage* – journeying together towards university study. 

The program is designed to get you ready for undergraduate study at UTS. Building on your existing strengths and successes, UniReady will help you to develop your knowledge of the university environment, its academic expectations as well as developing your academic literacy and research skills. 

Students who successfully complete the UniReady program will be offered a place to study in an undergraduate degree at UTS.

 

UniReady – Register to find out when applications open for 2026!

Looking to study an undergraduate degree at UTS? Register now to express your interest in the UniReady 2026 intake. You’ll be the first to know when UniReady applications open. 

 

Is the program for me? 

UniReady may be for you for you if you:

  • have completed year 12 and received an ATAR of between 55–69 at high school
  • have completed year 12, did not receive an ATAR, but performed well in some of your subjects
  • are mature aged with a wealth of life and work experience and you're looking for new opportunities  
  • have completed TAFE or vocational qualifications and are looking for further study opportunities 
  • are 17 years of age or above.

Interested to know more? Watch our information session where you'll meet the team, learn more about the program and find out how to apply.

Information about the UniReady Enabling Program

2026 UniReady information session.

Watch: 2026 UniReady information session

(11:47)

Watch: 2026 UniReady information session transcript

Hi everyone. My name is Sarah, and I work at the UTS Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion. I'm here to talk to you about a program called UniReady which is run with the Centre and Jumbunna. So UniReady is essentially what's called a fee-free university course, and it is a course that you undertake prior to starting undergraduate studies to build up your readiness to start in undergraduate studies here at UTS. So with UniReady, essentially what it's looking at doing is supporting you to build up your academic skills - so building on different skills that will support you for university readiness and also to help find your strengths and passions for university study. You'll be working in a supportive learning environment, so you'll have small classes with academic and cultural support built into those classes. And also, when you start UniReady essentially what will happen at the end if you successfully complete the program is you will get an offer to study an undergraduate degree here at UTS. So UTS UniReady program does have some eligibility criteria that you need to meet in order to work and start in the program. So you must be an Australian or New Zealand citizen or a Permanent Resident of Australia. You also need to be turning 17 years of age or more in the year that you commence the program. And specifically for the program, you also need to be Aboriginal or Toris Strait Islander and/or have experienced financial disadvantaged and that's evidenced through things like the area that you live – so the socioeconomic area – whether or not you've received Centrelink or Income or Asset Tested Entitlements, or if your parents or guardians have received Family Tax Benefit A while you were in year 11 or 12. If you're unsure around any of that financial criteria or whether or not you meet that, easiest thing to do is just contact us and ask and we can help you figure that out. We also want to make sure that when you start the UniReady program you are kind of ready to get into the academic work that's part of that program. So there's two different categories of academic eligibility criteria that we have for the program. The first is if you are a School-Leaver, so somebody who attained a year 12 HSC degree in the previous 18 months. We will look at either your ATAR – and we're looking at an ATR range between 55 or 68.95 – or you've completed your HSC and you've performed well in two or three of your subjects. So that's looking at a minimum of a Band 4. And if we're looking at that HSC performance, you don't require an ATAR. If you're a Non-School Leaver, so somebody who does not fit that School-Leaver category, essentially, we're looking at your application case-by-case, and we'll look at a range of different things for academic eligibility. So that can be things like your secondary school results. That can be year 11 or year 12, your ATAR, your UAI or equivalent, evidence of studies that you've undertaken since leaving school. So it could be TAFE qualification, a Cert IV, private community college or evidence of work experience. So – and we're looking at least a year full-time paid employment for that. And again, with any of that criteria if you're unsure, just contact us and reach out and we're happy to help answer any questions. So what exactly is UniReady and what do you do? So UniReady is a preparatory course for undergraduate study and you'll undertake 4 units of study in the UniReady program. Academic Foundations and University Skills, Data and Evidence, Writing for Academic Purposes and Introduction to Disciplines. UniReady program will go - will essentially run over 12 weeks. That includes 9 weeks of teaching. So up on the screen you have what our 2026 April delivery is going to look like. So you'll do three weeks of study in Academic Foundations and University Skills. You'll get a break week, another three weeks in Data and Evidence, another break week, and then three weeks in Writing for Academic Purposes. And then Introduction to Disciplines is a fully online self-paced subject and you'll do that over - from weeks 4 to weeks 9. So what do you actually learn in those subjects? So in Academic Foundations and University Skills essentially, you're looking at things like academic integrity, ethical scholarship, what the foundational expectations of university study are and the responsible use of AI tools, which is a big part of university learning. In Data and Evidence, you're working to build your capacity with digital tools in an academic setting. So, looking at numeracy, data literacy, and ethical reasoning tasks that will uh be beneficial across all different subject areas for university study. In Writing for Academic Purposes, you're really looking at deepening your academic communication skills through a focus on reading, writing, referencing, and revision. And then Introduction to Disciplines. You're exploring academic and professional pathways in a chosen field of study that you're interested in and you'll get to look at discipline specific text to make sure that that's before you go into undergraduate study that that's something that you're interested in and aligns with your interests and passions. So all-in-all UniReady Enabling Program 12 weeks of full-time study but in that there's 9 weeks of teaching. Our next intake will be in April, so from the 7th of April to the 26th of June and we'll possibly be running a September intake, but that's still to be confirmed. In terms of what study looks like for the enabling program so it is a full-time course. So it is expected that you're doing between 20 and 30 hours of study per week. We have both online and face-to-face learning options so you can choose to do it distance, or you can choose to do it on-campus but both of those require 3 hours of teaching per week so that will either be face-to-face teaching or online with a combination of online self-directed learning. What's really important to note about UniReady is that it's completely free. So it's supported by the Australian government's fee-free university courses initiative which means that you'll be enrolled in what's called a Commonwealth Supported Place and you don't need to make any payments towards your study. There will however be fees if you choose to go on to undergraduate study and then we can chat about that if you have any questions around the cost of undergraduate study. So in terms of applying - applications have not yet opened but we do have Expressions of Interest open so you can just go on to the UniReady website, and you are able to submit an Expression of Interest and we'll keep you in the loop. What we recommend now is that you start gathering up your supporting documents that you'll need to lodge alongside your application. So that's things like evidence of your academic and eligibility and then we are opening – if you are a School-Leaver so somebody who's using their HSC from the last 18 months to apply then you apply via UAC and that will be open – opening for February Round 1 to March Round 1. If you are a Non-School Leaver so somebody who's using that other criteria you will apply directly through the UTS Student Portal and that's different to a UAC application and we can - we'll pop on our website the link to that once that's open and that will be open from the 5th of March. And just what's really important for this subject - you know we want to make sure that you're feeling connected to the classes that you're in, that you're getting a really good experience as part of the program so we have a lot of different support mechanisms built in. As I mentioned earlier this program is run in conjunction with Jumbunna and so students who are First Nations in the program will get access to Jumbunna services and the content's been designed with that in mind. We have orientation workshops different services that you can access career advice, library, computer labs all are ready for you for the UniReady program. You can also get one-on-one guidance from teachers and Success Advisers when you need it. So yeah, lots of support built into the program as well. Quickly just a couple of Q&As. What courses will I actually get into to if I choose to study at UTS? So everyone who successfully completes the enabling program will receive an offer to an undergraduate degree here at UTS. There are some courses that have their own special admission requirements that you'd need to meet. So if you are looking at nursing and midwifery degrees, they are contingent on you also meeting the English Language Proficiency requirements for those courses. If you're looking at studying in a UTS law degree, they are competitive offers and you would also need to undertake an interview with the faculty. Places are limited in those. There are some courses that are excluded. So there's Bachelor of Accounting, Bachelor of Business (Honours), Bachelor of Management (Honours), Bachelor of Nursing for Enrolled Nurses, Bachelor of Sports and Exercise Science, the Exercise Therapy major. You can choose to do the Bachelor of Sports and Exercise Science, but just not the one with that major attached. The Bachelor of IT Co-op, Bachelor of Computing Science IDeA, Bachelor of Computing Science (Honours), and the Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and all of the Engineering (Honours) combined degree. If you would however like to go into Engineering, there is an Engineering pathway. So if that's the course that you are interested in, just reach out to us and we can let you know what pathway you can go through via this program. If you are interested in a Bachelor of Computing Science, you can't do the Honours, but you can just do the standard degree for that one. As I mentioned before, totally free program covered by the government's fee-free UniReady program. You will need to complete a form just to get that subsidy and we can go through that if you go through into the program. And then the other question we get is do we have to go to UTS? So, the UniReady program is only going to provide you an offer to a place at UTS. However, you know, if at the end of the program you choose to apply for other universities or you decide that uni isn't for you, that's totally fine. That's part of the purpose of this program is figuring out what you'd like to do and whether or not uni is one of those goals. So, that's it for me. If you have any questions after that you'd like to chat to us about, you can always email us at UniReady@uts.edu.au. Thank you very much for listening and I'd now like to hand over to my colleague Kendall who's going to chat about the Jumbunna Access Programs. Thank you.

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If you have any questions, please reach out to us at UniReady@uts.edu.au.

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