Recording: Student equity post-election

SONAL SINGH: Hi, everyone. We are going to get everyone in and then start. So just give us another one to two minutes while we accept everyone in the meeting invite. (Pause).  

Welcome, everyone. We're just accepting everyone to attend the webinar, so we're just letting everyone in from the waiting room. Give us another minute and we'll start. (Pause).  

Hi, everyone. We will make a start because we just accepted as many people as they come. Thank you, everyone, that is joining us. It is quite an important event and I think it's quite critical for us to also reflect as a community on what is happening within the equity policy. A lot of the work that we do obviously aligns with the commitment we have to Indigenous people, so I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that we are meeting on to day. I'm joining you all from Gadigal land, people of the Eora Nation. That's where UTS campus now stands. And I pay respect to Elders past and present and also acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of this land and the owners of knowledge for this land as well.  

I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that you are all joining from and acknowledge that this land was never ceded. I also acknowledge the presence of Leanne Holt, who is on the panel, and any Indigenous people that are joining us online.

My name is Sonal Singh. I'm the Head of Equity Pathways here at UTS. It is my pleasure to be hosting today's event on student equity post-election: priorities, possibilities, policy. Today we're going to hear from sector leaders as they unpack the post-election landscape for student equity in higher education. I think the critical question that everyone of us has been asking is with the potential shifts in the horizon regarding the policy, will student equity remain central to the Accord's legacy and Government priorities? I am quite mindful in some cases in institutional priorities as well.

There are a lot of questions that everyone has in the sector. There's uncertainty in the sector as well, which we all acknowledge, and I'm very grateful that the Department is very keen to hear as well to the practitioners around this. So very grateful for everyone to have taken the time to present today, to answer some of those questions as well, and to the equity practitioners that are joining us live.

First, we'll open the session and hear from Danielle Doogan, the First Assistant Secretary of the Higher Education Stewardship and Funding Division in the Australian Government Department of Education. After the presentation, we will open for an audience Q&A with Danielle, following her presentation, so if you have any questions, do put them in the Q&A function. After that, we will move into the panel Q&A, which will offer more critical insight into the discussion that is happening as well.

Before I pass to Danielle, a few notes regarding a couple of housekeeping matters. Today's event is live captioned. To view the captions, click on CC button in the Zoom control panel at the bottom of your screen or you can click on the link that is in the chat. Thanks, Zain. To ask Danielle any questions, please, as I said before, type it in the Q&A box, which you can also find in your Zoom control panel. You can upvote the questions that others have asked. Due to the limited time we have, we might not be able to facilitate audience questions after the panel session. Wherever possible, we will make sure that the panel members can answer the questions as they come up, but we also have a lot of seasoned practitioners that are joining us so, I would strongly encourage everyone to please jump in and answer some of those questions as well.

Just to note as well, we've been asked to provide a briefing on this to the ATEC Commissioners regarding the outcomes from the session as well, so we will be taking all the questions and trying to respond to them as well and provide the briefing, so your contribution will be highly useful. Please engage in the discussions and make sure the questions are relevant to the webinar we have today.

Now I would like to hand it over to Danielle, who will provide an update from ATEC on Government funding and broader equity policy. Thanks, Danielle.  

DANIELLE DONEGAN: Thanks, Sonal. Thanks for inviting me today. I would also like to associate myself with your Acknowledgment of Country and say that I am dialing in from Ngunnawal Country today.  

Since we've accepted this invitation, I am now the Executive Director of the ATEC. So the ATEC was I guess implemented, you might say, from 1 July and so along with Sonal, I too will be providing feedback through to our Commissioners, as well as to the Department, to make sure that when we're thinking about your feedback, we're thinking about what it means right now and the changes that maybe the Department might need to consider, but also what it means for the ATEC long term and what I will work with Commissioners on to think about the long term future.

Zain, if you want to go to the next slide. Thank you. And the next slide. So, as you know, there was an Australian Universities Accord report. That report came out about 12 months ago now and it was led by a panel of eminent Australians. The Accord report culminated in a final report outlining 42 recommendations to Government. The Minister refers to the report as "a plan for a decade" and his first priority has been about access and opportunity for all. In doing that, the Australian Government has set an ambitious target of 80% of working age Australians attaining a tertiary qualification by 2030, and to meet this goal, we know that we need more people from underrepresented backgrounds, so First Nations people, people from low SES backgrounds, regional and remote Australians, and people with a disability to go to university. Achieving this target will require action in both the vocational education and training systems and the higher education system to grow, and for Government providers, industry and community to work effectively together.  

Next slide. Within Government's response to the Accord, there have been three major recommendations that have been accepted that are wide ranging and have quite an impact on the current funding landscape but also the governance landscape of higher education. Today I'm going to focus on the first two: the ATEC and needs-based funding. There's also big changes for managed growth funding, and the Government is starting to work with planners and with University Executive on what that means for 2026. Next slide.  

So you can see from here we've already started to put in place a number of changes for 2025. So the Disability Support Fund was one of our first actions from the Accord to quadruple funding from 1 January this year. Fee Free University ready has started, as well as the National Student Ombudsman. The Commonwealth Prac Payments have started just 29 days ago and I hope that people know where to go to within universities to apply for the Prac Payment, and the universities have got systems in place and students are getting paid. As I said before, our interim ATEC started from 1 July and the Indigenous Student Success Program has transferred from the National Indigenous Australians Agency through to the Department of Education. There's no changes to that program. That program remains in purpose, and in an implementation sense, exactly the same, but it now sits alongside the other university focused programs in the equity space. From 2026, there will be changes in managed growth, needs-based funds outreach, and the ATEC. Some of those are changes in funding and some of them are changes in program. I'm very happy to take questions on those things. Then, of course, there is ongoing change in 2027 as the full managed growth funding is implemented and the ATEC starts to work with universities and will be an enhanced mission based compact.

Next slide. So the ATEC is designed to be an independent steward for higher education. It is going to work closely with the sector to make sure that it can advise on and implement new changes to the higher education funding, negotiating mission based compacts, providing creative pathways for students to move between vocational education and higher education systems.

If we move to the next slide, the ATEC will be governed by three Commissioners. There will be a fulltime Commissioner, a fulltime First Nations Commissioner, and a parttime Commissioner, and you can see from the slide our interim Commissioners. As a collective, Commissioners are going to view all things from across the sector, bring their own experience, and make decisions about how higher education and tertiary education works in Australia into the future. Commissioners will be appointed for up to five years. There will be a transparent and merit-based process to appoint Commissioners and then Commissioners will be appointed by Government.

If we could go to the next slide. So we can see from here there will be quite a few changes in how decisions are made once an ATEC is established. As I said, the ATEC is definitely in place but, of course, it needs legislation to become operational. There will be changes to both the Higher Education Standards Act and there will be an introduction of new legislation to create the ATEC. With both of those things combined, it will mean that the ATEC will have the powers to negotiate a mission based compact but also to work with universities to decide what a domestic student profile looks like and an international student profile looks like. It will effectively have the ability to decide how much a university grows by.

In doing that, the ATEC will also be available to provide advice to Government on whether there are enough places in the system. It will provide advice on whether equity students have enough access to the system. It will provide advice on the costs of teaching and research, and on the price of student and Government contribution amounts. It will provide advice to the Minister on the alignment between higher education and vocational education. It will also monitor the tertiary attainment targets. It will monitor First Nations outcomes, representation and self-determination in higher education. It will monitor higher education sector and individual provider performance and it will monitor sustainability and emerging issues. Of course, it will implement the managed growth system, needs-based funding, compacts, and it will be required to report on the sector on the progress towards Government achievements.  

Next slide, Zain. So that takes us to needs-based funding. Needs-based funding is very different in its design from where we are at the moment. At the moment in the system, with the HEPPP, we have an amount of money that is distributed to universities based on the number of students in the system. In the future, there will be an amount of money per student that is distributed to higher education universities, depending on the number of students that they have, which means the overall amount of money that is available will grow with every additional student who meets the definitions for needs-based funding and attracts needs-based funding. It is a huge change to our current funding model and one that really, we hope, will drive a big focus on making sure that more equity students have access and opportunity to go to university.

Next slide. So from 2026, higher education providers will receive needs-based funding contributions for students in a Commonwealth supported place. They will receive funding for students from a low SES background or First Nations student, and they will also receive funding for students studying at a regional campus.

The needs-based funding is intended to support more students to participate and succeed at university. The funding is intended to address persistent discrepancies in retention, success, completion for students from underrepresented backgrounds, and address the higher costs of teaching those students in the regions. So it is our hope that that funding and the increase in funding that is provided to higher education institutions then flows on to the types of work that you are doing to make sure that we see more students from equity backgrounds completing and succeeding in their higher education pathways.

If we could go to the next slide, I think I have spoken to this one previously to say that the needs-based funding is demand driven. So, as I said before, it does mean that every additional student who matches the definition for needs-based funding will attract a loading, which means that instead of the one amount of money being distributed amongst a smaller amount each time there's an additional student in the system, that that money will continue to grow, and that means that there is more work that can be done to support those students.  

In 2026, that does mean that the HEPPP and the regional loading programs will cease, but this new funding takes that place and takes the intention of those programs and building it into the demand driven system that we are creating. Thanks, Zain.  

So in the system, there are two components that I have talked about: the equity component and the regional component. In the equity component, it is targeted towards our First Nations students and students from low SES backgrounds. The purpose of that is to make sure that we provide a number of supports that keep those students at university and help them to succeed. We know access has done a lot of work on what the best supports that need to be put in place. We know that you, as providers, have also got great ideas for what it means for you in your communities and how different that needs to be in order to make sure that students at your institutions are supported to stay in your institutions or within the higher education system to complete their degrees. That's the type of thing that we will be looking at to make sure that we can build a framework that provides some guidance on what that money is intended to do, and that will be negotiated through the mission based compact.

The regional component is about universities that have campuses located in regional and remote areas. There will be an allocation for each student that goes to a remote or regional campus and that attribution is to make sure that we continue to support high-quality and accessible education in place, in regional and remote Australia, so there is a bit of a change in the regional component.

If we move to the next slide, our next steps for the needs-based funding is to make sure that we can establish the right definitions for cohorts that will attract contributions, that we set a contribution amount for each student, and that then we can estimate the allocations for 2026. At the moment, we are providing advice to the Minister and the Government about the definitions and setting contribution amounts. Once we do that, we'll be in a situation where we can start to share that.

For 2026, we want to make sure that the system is built so that we can collect that information with as much ease as possible to make sure that nobody misses out, and so in a lot of places, the definitions we have in place will be the definitions that we use for 2026. However, we do know that some definitions have some shortfalls, so, for example, the low SES definition is still going to be a place based definition. In the future, we are looking for ways to make that definition more reflective of people's actual incomes, like it is in the school system. However, as we know, when we change to the university system, it is not as easy as getting parental income and being able to make an assessment of someone's low SES status, and so we are working with providers at the moment to try to get more information to think about how we can do it better in the future.

In the ATEC, we will also be thinking about performance reporting, and for 2027, we are very keen to make sure that this approach is legislated in the HESA. We know that once it's in legislation, it's a much more permanent feature of the higher education funding landscape, and that is our intention long term.

Next slide, Zain. When we've created the needs-based funding, of course outreach was a component of HEPPP. We still believe that outreach is an important activity for universities. Part of what we've done in HEPPP is to make sure that we've quarantined the amount that was spent on outreach, and it's an ongoing fund. So it's not just a 2026 amount; it's an ongoing amount.

We looked at the amount of funding that was spent on outreach and that was the amount that was quarantined. Now, we know that works in whole but we also know that some universities spend more than their allocation and some universities spend maybe a little less than their allocation, and so we're now working through the rules that we're establishing in both needs-based funding and in the outreach to make sure that we can provide a flexible transition for 2026 and we will think about what it means longer term in 2027. So the outreach is essentially kept the same to focus on pre-access support activities to make sure that we continue to see growth through equity.  

Next slide, Zain. We've also had other recent investments, some of which I talked about at the start; specifically the quadrupling of the Disability Support Fund. We are working through there to make sure that not only is it important that we have quadrupled the amount of money but actually that that money is going to where it's needed, that there is transparent expenditure, that there is a nationally consistent framework, and that more people are supported to go to university.  

We have also expanded the University Study Hubs and we've expanded the Tertiary Access Payment. The Tertiary Access Payment has had an eligibility change, and so it's probably just important to note that you no longer have to study within 12 months of completing Year 12, and that payment has been expanded. So if we have regional students that are moving, they can access that now through Services Australia.  

I think, Zain, that brings me to the end of my presentation. So if you have questions that you maybe don't get an answer to today or if you'd like more information, please contact us at equity@atec.gov.au.  

SONAL SINGH: Thanks, Dan. I really appreciate the insights you have provided. We've got a couple of questions coming in, so I'll try to group the questions, especially the ones that have been voted up. These questions are basically around guidelines. When do you expect the higher education guidelines to be implemented and also in terms of timelines. I know you said universities will be notified shortly. What does 'shortly' in terms of timelines look like?  

DANIELLE DONEGANL That's a very good question. So, first of all, needs-based funding will be implemented from 1 January 2026. So that means that we have to have our other grants guidelines ready to go prior to then. So we're doing what we can do make sure that they are in place and ready to look at. So there's a lot of things that we've done in the background, but I imagine sometime in the next couple of months we'll start to make sure that everybody has seen that, but not only seen our other grants guidelines, but seen the guidance information that goes with them.

At the moment we are talking to universities about their 2026 position. So that includes the transition year for managed growth. We had a meeting with the peaks last week and I know we're meeting with university planners on Monday next week, and so what that means is we are starting to work with the planners on essentially it's an estimate of what the value will be for needs-based funding. So the planners will be able to see that amount for the first time, and once we have approval from Government, we'll be able to update that estimate with actual figures, and we're hoping to be able to do that sometime in August.  

SONAL SINGH: Thank you. So when you articulated what the process would be for universities to engage in this, a question that keeps coming up is around students with disabilities. So do you have a sense as to why this cohort is not included in the outreach fund or in the needs-based funding, which I think is probably with the disability support, but it would be good to get a response from you around that.  

DANIELLE DONEGANL Yes, thanks, Sonal. We have made a decision as Government to increase the amount of disability support fund through the Disability Support Fund. There was a key focus there that I think recognised that there was more to do there, and that has resulted in the quadrupling of funding in that area. I think Government understands that it may well need to think about that differently and to start to see how that funding might in the future move into needs-based funding. But, as a first step, it's made a commitment to quadruple that funding and to work with disability stakeholders to make sure that, as we move forward, we can set very clear guidance on the right definition.  

As you know, when we were doing the Accord, there was a lot of feedback on the definition that the Accord report used. We want to make sure that we take the time to get that right, to make sure that it is consistent, and to make sure that we can give Government assurance that a demand driven, needs-based funding system will respond to all of the needs in the system and be captured adequately. At the moment, we think we couldn't quite get it captured adequately without doing the work with the sector.  

SONAL SINGH: So a follow up on that. From looking at the outreach allocation for 2026, is this going to be based similar to the current HEPPP allocation formula or is it another allocation model you are looking at for 2026?  

DANIELLE DONEGAN: It is based on the current model, so we're trying to make that transition as seamless as possible.  

SONAL SINGH: OK. Thank you for that. We've got a few more questions coming in but we'll get into the panel conversations. We will put these questions to you and to the Department to get a response that we can give back to the audience participants in the form of email. Thank you again for your time, Dan.  

DANIELLE DONEGAN: Thank you and thanks to everyone for your questions. I might not have gotten to them but they have been really important to help reshaping our thinking about the guidelines and the types of requirements we put in place, so thank you very much.  

SONAL SINGH: Thanks, Dan. We'll bring the panel in now. So that was the presentation from the Department regarding the needs-based funding, outreach funding, but there was a lot in there regarding all the other changes that they're thinking about. So just reflecting on Dan's presentation, we've got an esteemed panel here. Their bios have been put up, so I won't read them out to you because it will take me more time. So we'll go straight into the questions. So first question is to Ian. Just reflecting on Danielle's presentation, Ian, who is the Research Director at ACSES, what are the opportunities and risk for transitioning to needs-based funding from HEPPP?  

PROF. IAN LI: Thanks, Sonal, for the question. That was an insightful talk by Dan. It does sound like there are more specific details on the design of needs-based funding and the other initiatives that Dan has talked about, but here are my initial reactions. So I'll start with something that Dan did focus quite a bit on in her talk: the demand driven nature of needs-based funding, which is distinct from the fixed and shared nature of HEPPP.  

So needs-based funding is now going to be tied to enrolments for students from low SES backgrounds, the equity component, and those studying at regional campuses, the regional component. In other words, resourcing and funding to support students from underrepresented backgrounds will follow the students, and, in general, I think that's a good thing. For institutions, those who enroll more will get more funding and those who enroll fewer will get fewer funding, and that basically means that institutional efforts and output will be resourced, depending on the number of students they bring through their doors. I think that's a good thing. I think that supports, in principle, growth through equity in Australian higher ed. But I will come back to that later with a minor caveat.

The obvious caveat that does arise  and I know that this is something that Dan has mentioned they are working on  is the quantum of funding for each student under needs-based funding. So the key question is: will that be enough to change institutional behaviour? And I think the crux is that there isn't a lot of good information out there on how much is needed to support teaching and learning by students from underrepresented backgrounds. We don't know how that interacts with other drivers of cost, such as mode of study or parttime study, and, therefore, there is, I think, a slight risk that we have to get this right, otherwise we might not hit the right mark in terms of financial incentives and, therefore, not change institutional behaviour, which is what all this is actually about.

Another consideration is how needs-based funding would work at different scales, so for institutions of different sizes and different programs and initiatives that have different numbers of students from underrepresented backgrounds, needs-based funding does not seem to be, I guess, reactive to that. That's a huge fixed cost basically in implementing programs. So institutions that have lower numbers of underrepresented students or do not intend to have large amounts of underrepresented students would hardly be expected to change their behaviour.  

One thing that was quite interesting is that needs-based funding will provide funding for students from multipleequity backgrounds; namely, low SES and regional students again. Students who are First Nations or students with disability are separately provided for under different initiatives. That did come up in the Q&A but I guess it will be interesting to see how that approach will work in practice. But I think the fact that there's a separate component for equity and regional, and that institutions attract a separate component and loading for each, is positive because we do know that intersectionality does actually mean that students who come from multiple equity groups will need more support. So seeing that being addressed through needs-based funding and hopefully in tandem with the ISSP and with the Disability Support Program, I think that's a positive.

But coming back to regional remote students, this is only for students who are studying at a regional campus, so I guess we do have to wonder about students from the regions who are at a metropolitan campus, who might need additional support but wouldn't comply for the regional component. They will qualify for the equity component if they are also from a low SES background, but this depends on the preciseness of the ABARE based measure, and I'll come back to this point later, although Dan has already flagged that there will be ongoing work to try to shift away from that to a better measure.

Coming back again to the principal design of needs-based funding, which is based on enrolment, and this raises the question of whether there should be an outcomes based component to needs-based funding because it is to address persistent discrepancies in outcomes, retention, success and completion, but if it's based only on enrolment, it is blind to that, and I think that we should actually introduce an outcomes based component for needs-based funding so there is not just bums on seats but actually achieving the outcomes that we want for the underrepresented students. Dan has flagged the role of mission based compacts in performance monitoring, so I guess it's watch this space for now, but I think that's definitely something that will be very welcome on the agenda.  

There is also an issue of ensuring that needs-based funding goes to where it's intended. We need to make sure that the needs-based funding goes to institutions for underrepresented students goes to those underrepresented students. So, again, tying it to some sort of performance based measure will promote institutional accountability and shift the funding from outputs to actual outcomes.

Another key difference is the needs-based funding and HEPPP  sorry, the transition to needs-based funding is the separation of outreach now as a separate funded component in its own right. It's good to see that, that steward provision made for separate outreach fund, but the relatively limited nature of the funding for the outreach fund does mean that probably institutions would have to go with the consortia approach. So it's a balancing act of creating competition, healthy competition, but also collaboration would be essential to making this work, and having outreach sit aside from needs-based funding also does put the onus on institutions to have a strategic, integrated and whole of life cycle approach to underrepresented students.

Now, the last part I'm going to finish with is on data and infrastructure and landscape and how this will work with needs-based funding. So at present, the low SES measure is still based on the ABARE based measure, which is based on the Census data, which means that identification of low SES students is still going to be backward looking and, in some cases, it will lag by five years, depending on when the Census was administered, and this backwards identification will present an obstacle for outreach planning because the low SES definition might change with changes in the Census.  

There is also a lag in departmental data, so in the current context, knowing how many underrepresented students institutions have in scope might take up to two years, and this will put pressure on institutions to manage funding and programs and make sure that the programs and initiatives they have are financially sustainable and stable. But it's good to hear that this is definitely on the Department and ATEC's radar and I guess we all have to look forward to the work that's going to be done in arriving at a better measure and a practical and feasible measure of low SES in the future.

So, in general, I think that needs-based funding is a positive and it does offer many opportunities to students but the devil is in the detail and we need to consider carefully the specifics of program design, how institutions will react and change behaviour, and how existing data systems and infrastructure will support its implementation.  

SONAL SINGH: Thanks for that, Ian, because you have captured it. It actually raises a lot more questions. Details needs to be worked out as well and we probably have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity unlike HEPPP. We've got an opportunity to really shape the way the policy's intent needs to be delivered in institutions sense, so that outcomes framework is quite critical. In the past, the institutions, the money, can be used for recruitment activities, et cetera, so those are the things that we need to be mindful of when it comes to outreach funding as well. That seems to be the intent that was coming from Dan's presentation.

Moving on to you, Leanne, so Leanne is the DVC Indigenous at UNSW. What are your reflections on Dan's presentation but also what does Indigenous self-determination mean in this context for the higher education reform? That's something that we need to have a deep dive into.  

PROF. LEANNE HOLT: Thanks, Sonal, and thanks, Danielle, for your presentation. From my perspective, I'm really excited about the opportunities that ATEC opens up for Indigenous higher education and equity agendas. I think that obviously there's already been considerations and the appointment of an interim first fulltime Indigenous Commissioner. We've had lots of discussion around the addition of Indigenous led governance that will complement the Commissioner. I think the introduction of mission based compacts  I probably was a bit concerned. Being in higher education for nearly 30 years, as soon as they mention "compacts", it probably raised some alarms. I thought: I wish you would use a different language than "compacts". But I think for us that have been in the sector for a long time, we have seen a lot of different iterations of compact come through with very little outcome and a lot of work, and no motivations to actually align the compact, what's been written in the compact, with outcomes; there hasn't been any incentives linked to the compacts. So I'm very interested in how the mission-based compacts are implemented in this instance, but I'm quite positive about the conversations to date and the opportunities that the mission-based compacts can lead to in relation to Indigenous outcomes and equity agendas.

I also think that a really important piece of ATEC will be the harmonisation agenda. I don't think Dani talked to it, but I think that the opportunity for ATEC to sit autonomously from the Department and be able to work across political boundaries as far as Federal Government and State Government I think is going to be a really important piece for ATEC, for a harmonisation piece that covers universities, TAFEs or vocational education, industry, schools, professional organisations. I think that could be a really innovative piece and something that can really make a difference in our spaces.

I think, importantly, we do not want ATEC to be a further regulator but, rather, an enabler and an innovator in advancing outcomes for our peoples. However, the opportunity for ATEC to provide outcomes on impact evaluation I think Ian talked a little bit about this instead of the sole quantitative data that we currently receive by the Department, I also think is going to be a really important piece. I think that it is time that we were able to actually get deeper data, instead of relying on individual researchers to be bringing this together. I think that ATEC can really provide an important role and they can be guided by some of that research that's been done through access fellowships and some of that work that's been done across the sector by probably a lot of the people that are sitting in this room. But I think that's again going to be a really important piece that ATEC can take ownership of.

Ian talked a bit about healthy competition. I was in two minds about that. I think we're working with underrepresented groups, which means that we don't need to be competing for the same students. There's plenty of work to be done to increase our engagement of those different groups and I just think that we probably need to focus more on the unique strengths of our universities and understand what we can be responding to for our communities that actually links to our individual strengths and how they complement each other so that we are taking a coordinated approach, instead of coming in in different angles. So I am a bit wary that healthy competition probably isn't the right analogy for what we want to achieve.

I think some of the considerations currently and I've said this right from the very beginning like, I'm on quite a few committees so I was very privileged to have very early insight into some of these conversations. My straightaway concern, as soon as needs-based funding was brought up on an agenda, was that the guidelines for ISSP and needs-based sorry, Indigenous Students Success Program and needs-based funding are very similar in a lot of cases. I think that is going to be really important that we explore the differences between NBF and ISSP because otherwise I can see a future where there's an amalgamation conversation happening, and I think it's really important that we ensure that self-determined funding remains, but what does that look like and how do we differentiate needs-based funding and ISSP to achieve greater Indigenous student outcomes?  

It was really good to hear Danielle talk about further investigation in relation to the condensing of HEPPP into NBF because there have been a lot of concerning conversations or points that have come up when it first started to be discussed, and I just don't think there's been enough thinking through the impacts of that to ensure that we continue a positive trajectory in that pathways space. So, I look forward to lots of conversations from everyone in the room on providing input to make sure that that hits the nail and that we don't end up with something that takes us backwards in that space.

I've been thinking a lot about this self-determination piece, Sonal, so I just want to finish my comments on that I think that  like, over the last decade, we have seen a lot more strategies developed in our spaces, both from an Indigenous perspective but also from a disabilities and from a low SES and a regional remote perspective, like, our universities have started to put more time and effort and investment into creating strategies, but one thing I thought about in the last 12 months is that they're still very internally focused; they're still very much looking at, "Well, what do we want to achieve as a university" instead of actually responding to our community aspirations and looking externally. Like, what is our end game? From a community perspective, what is the end game, what are our communities' aspirations now and in five years' time, in ten years' time, in fifty years' time, and how do universities actually contribute to that?  

I suppose a policy or a legislated example of where that raises concerns is not just from a university strategy but, say, the job ready graduates package  we've got to mention the job ready graduates package because it had so many implications to our peoples, and we're still reeling from that and there's still a lot of work to undo a lot of the damage that that put in place. But the job ready graduates package determined what the Government saw the work force priorities were for our students. However, from an Indigenous community perspective, it was so unaligned that it left Indigenous students attracting higher debts comparatively because if they were going to be doing degrees that actually did respond to community needs, they ended up with higher student contribution debt, and that was just one piece, let alone the 50% pass and all the other pieces of the policy that came to it.  

But I suppose what I'm saying is that we need to be responding to communities and not just looking at our university needs to get more students or our university needs to do this or our university needs to that so we can pat ourselves on the back when we achieve those KPIs or work towards those KPIs, because the university is just a resource and a tool to actually be able to achieve so much to our communities and that's where we need to have our focus, and we need to remember that that's why we're here, serving the universities to serve our communities. I will leave it at that.  

Thank you.  

SONAL SINGH: Thank you for that, Leanne. I think that is my hope with ATEC as well, being maybe that circuit breaker because the universities, in terms of their social license as well, I think there is a lot of work that needs to happen in there.  

Picking up the theme of community, bringing you in Chris, as the CEO of the Country Universities Centre, what does genuine community led programs look like? What does community engagement look like? Somebody that's working in the community, what do you want universities to do better?  

CHRIS RONAN: I think there's a couple of comments that relate to what Leanne was saying as well. But what was interesting in Dan's presentation is that the 2026 reforms will be through the other grant guidelines, and there have been some questions around that, but, simultaneously, we'll have an independent ATEC, so that means there will be ministerial discretion but also an independent ATEC, and then through HESA in 2027. I think that will be interesting to play out.

Another piece that is a question, just to address some questions in my comments, is around needs-based funding at regional unis. There is question about what about the regional study hubs. I would extend that and say: What about online students? How will that be managed and monitored? I feel at the moment this approach is very uni focused and not problem focused on trying to solve the problem, and there is a risk that there are really perverse outcomes and incentives for uni behaviour to that policy. I think that goes to what Leanne's point was around competition and territory and things like that. That's a little bit concerning to me and something I would be keen to work through, and that is starting to come out. So, there's probably some unanswered questions there which are important.

Another piece is that from a community point of view and from a CUC or a regional study hub point of view, we've got a centralised sort of ATEC model, which there's certainly strength to that, but we've seen that some of the best participation activities, especially from a regional context, is through a decentralised model. So how are we going to navigate the tension between more centralised higher ed system and successful community-led pieces of work? I don't think we should resolve that tension. I think it should always be navigated, and sitting in the middle is probably the right place to be.

To your question directly, Sonal, around what makes good community partnerships, the problem we've got at the moment is that universities are being incentivised through the policy framework to be the sole driver of student equity, and I think that's actually unreasonable for the universities to have that pressure put on them. There are other actors and players that need to be involved in this. So genuine community led sits on the very fringes of HESA, and that's why when we look at HEPPP or we look at the regional study hub funding, partnerships is a key piece of it because that's the policy mechanism that we're stuck in, that we've got to do these partnerships and work with communities, which is also to Leanne's point around being very university focused.

So, the question I have is how can we challenge that assumption and actually say partnerships for partnership's sake isn't necessarily good, so often it's driven by Government but let's not force it. So in a right situation, that's great. When it's not, it doesn't have to be there. I think ownership of dollars and community direction we found through some of the wider participation community led work we have done. When communities hold the money, they have a different power. That doesn't necessarily mean universities shouldn't get money but it's just a different model that sits off to the side.

I think the other thing is around incorporating the nonuniversity actors and in those outreach partnerships because, again, universities play one role but we want that harmonisation piece. People in communities don't talk about equity strategies or use the language that we're talking about here. They just potentially want to access education, what that looks like, and go on and get a job. So I think a different sort of reframing in that community context is really key.  

I'm really conscious of time so I might stop my comments there and I'll let Nicola and Kylie chime in as well, so thanks.  

SONAL SINGH: Thanks, Chris. I'll bring in Nicola then. Nicola is the incoming President of the EPHEA, which is Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Association. Nicola, what role should equity practitioners play in advocating and advising on funding design and institutional practice?  

DR. NICOLA CULL: Thanks, Sonal. Firstly, I just want to say I am really excited to see that higher education policy is now driven through the lens of equity and, in particular, that it's recognised as essential to Australia, both socially and economically. I think we have to really understand that that's a really meaningful cultural shift. So if we think about how we will turn that shift into real impact, I think your question of what you asked me, what role equity practitioners should play in advocating and advising on policy from a design and institutional practice, really is quite an important one.  

As Danielle spoke about earlier, the needs-based funding model and its promising focus on participation of student success, we can see if it's designed well, it could move universities beyond short-term equity thinking and projects and enable that much needed systemic structural cultural changes, which is actually something EPHEA has long advocated for, as you know. However, as Ian said earlier, the devil is in the detail for sure. So what happens next will depend on how that policy is designed and then obviously that subsequent implementation. That is where equity practitioners are critical, not just as implementers of programs but really as strategic partners in shaping that funding and institutional responses.

Practitioners have such deep knowledge of how equity or inequity actually plays out in universities across institutions. We are working at the intersection of planning, student experience, community engagement and policy, and so we're really in the system that shapes who gets in, who succeeds and who is left behind. So we can really see how those systems include or exclude. That insight really matters, especially when we're working with and supporting students facing intersecting cumulative barriers; as Ian mentioned before, that intersectionality part often gets missed. So students, maybe those with care responsibilities or care experience students, students from Pasifika communities or refugee backgrounds and many more, these students are sometimes invisible in our policy but they're central in our work as practitioners. So we have insights into that complexity, and so are well placed to help with design for more inclusive and effective funding models and practices.  

Right now what we have all been talking about, the establishment of ATEC, the MBF and proposed outreach funding models, mission-based compacts, all the increased accountability around institutional equity performance, there's a real opportunity here for Government Departments and institutions to tap into this practitioner expertise. EPHEA has around 1,400 members who are practitioners working across communities, across institutions, they work with their faculties, with their student services, they work in policy partnerships and within communities, so really have that rounded understanding of how to shape inclusion, how resources flow and what we can do to make change happen. So all of that knowledge is quite essential if we're looking at how do we turn policy with good intent, really positive intent here, into those real outcomes.

To give an example, while practitioner advocacy is important, practitioners, as you know, have concern around the current NBF model, the model doesn't include the outreach and access part of the work. And so there's concern around, you know, without sufficient investment across that full student life cycle. Increasing participation, if we're not focusing on that business and access, it could be actually quite problematic, quite difficult, and it's a concern a few members raised early. So we reached out to the department about this and the proposed, you know, National Outreach Fund. And whilst obviously recognising the intent is positive, we did raise because what the intent is positive and especially I'm just thinking of you, Chris, around collaboration and working with other organisations, incredibly positive. But we did raise concerns that the scale and approach could also be problematic and also does risk, you know, that dismantling of the sort of national outreach and that access infrastructure built under head across the sector, which sort of seems to be at odds with the reform of what we're aiming the poor is only to deliver here. But we've had really constructive engagement with the department on this. And that's why advocacy from equity and practitioners, you know, is such an important part of our work and especially out of fear. I think just touching on that competition element, but another important thing is that I know in a fear, but in equity practitioners more generally, kind of operate from a shared commitment to equity for students and communities for all, like really underpinned by education is a right. So we work collaboratively, not competitively. So like Leanne, I don't think competition is helpful. I think the collaborative approach that a lot of equity practitioners have working together, it's not just for practice, but it's also actually what composition equity practitioners to play a key role in advising on funding strategy in ways that serve the national interest. So not internally, as Yam was talking about before, but looking outwards to serving the communities that we work for. And that really matters. We do know that when people closest to the work, as well as people closest to exclusion are involved in shaping policy, then we're more likely to get better outcomes. So again, it's that collaborative approach I think equity practitioners bring alongside our First Nations colleagues and community partners, like the rushes and CUCs, you know, both that lived and professional expertise in navigating and challenging inequity. And I think, you know, if we see this every day, don't we see equity staff designing access pathways, challenging exclusionary practices and really working towards justice. So to realise the accord, I'll finish up quickly. It will take that collective effort. Equity practitioners do have some insight, experience, that systems thinking needed to make that vision a reality. And I think that's why, so not going to make your question, equity practitioners really have a vital role and advising and advocating for policy funding design and how institutions respond. And I will leave it there.

SONAL SINGH: No, thank you for that because it does bring it a conversation around institutional leaders. So we will bring you Kylie to sort of address that. We're going a bit over time, but we'll take the liberty for a few more minutes because it's quite a critical conversation happening. So, and everyone wants to hear from an institutional leader, especially with the approach that universities can take, you know, it's a difficult time for universities, which is an elephant in the room that no one has mentioned about the financial constraints universities are facing. So what can universities do in here? And we're talking about moving from competition to collaboration. Given all that context, you know, how can universities respond to the challenges that's coming up and to the equity reforms. -  

KYLIE READMAN: Thanks, Sonal, and thanks everybody for indulging the panel for an extra few minutes. I've learned a lot from the other speakers today as well, which has been great to sit in this place and be part of it. I think even in times of fiscal constraint, institutions have to take proactive steps to safeguard and advance equity participation, targets and student success. If you think about the global context, I'd say that's now more important than ever, that as organisations we're clear about what our missions are and even though we welcome support for students from equity backgrounds and underserved backgrounds through a needs -based funding, I think we also have to think about mission. And universities, as we know from looking at the data have responded to that differently over time. So I think if I was prioritising equity in tight times of tight budget control, I'd be thinking about embedding equity in core strategy, so making sure it's part of the language that people are speaking. I think we need to embed it in the curriculum and make sure that it's linked to evaluation and that we fund what works and people from EPHEA for many many years have been working at the forefront of that work and providing that knowledge and input into universities and now if if not now if not before now the universities haven't taken up that knowledge and advice from equity practitioners I hope that my colleagues in senior leadership roles are really listening and I'm confident that they are not just because of the, I hope, not motivated by the changes to funding. And I think that's where that concern around competition, collaboration is a really important thing to think through. So for me, it is about not vying, as Leanne said, not vying for the largest share of equity cohort enrolments, but to actually think about how do we pull resources beyond what we're funded to do to make sure that we uplift the sector as a whole and that we work in service to all of our students and particularly to students from underserved backgrounds, that's my view. I think it's it is a bit challenging because of the kinds of things that other panel members have identified. Using a headcount model does focus your attention on how many rather than how well and who else. So, you know, I think about about Chris's comments about study hubs and country university centres, etc. And think about how do we share initiatives? How do we create collective impact frameworks? How do we think about sector wide resourcing? How do we create open access repositories as we have seen from access and others of successful programs and keep having this conversation? How do we engage with community partners? And how do we engage with government? I think it was great that Dan was here. But I think it's important that we do things like co -create and be involved in the conversation. So I'm really glad to hear that a fear is co create reporting approaches. So it's not just about numbers, but it's holistic, not piecemeal. And I think we need to create a reporting framework that actually does speak to outcomes and doesn't create or will report on support for students' legislation over here, support on the report on the new needs -based funding here, report on this other disability funding over there, those reporting frameworks that are differentiated, as probably some of you know, actually take resources away from doing the real work. So I think really encourage the government to try and help us and we I think as a sector would be happy to contribute to a holistic reporting framework that sees our students as whole people. There's lots of other things to say, but I might just draw a line under my comments there, Sonal, so that people can get back to their day work.

SONAL SINGH: Thank you for that. A lot of people have still stayed online, which shows that a lot of people are really engaging in the conversation and we can keep continuing the conversation. But look, thank you for your time to all the panel members. Thank you Dan. So that sort of concludes today's webinar. We'll post the recording of today's webinar and we'll send an email to all the registrants once it's online the briefing that is created as well the questions that is put into the chat everyone will get an opportunity to respond to it as well we'll provide the responses as a briefing to the department and as I said to the interim ATEC commissioners as well we have an upcoming access symposium that is coming up as well which access will be sharing more information on, so there's opportunity to further keep continuing this conversation. Thank you everyone, I appreciate all the support that everyone has provided, have a good rest of the day. Bye everyone.