Recording: Implementing the Universities Accord: Student equity in practice

SONAL SINGH: Hello, everyone.  Thank you for joining us for today's event.  My name is Sonal Singh.  I'm the Head of Equity Pathways here at UTS.  

I would like to begin first of all by acknowledging that for those of us here, we are meeting on Indigenous land that was never ceded and will always be Aboriginal land.  I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, upon whose lands I'm joining you from today, and pay my respects to Elders, past and present.  I'd also like to acknowledge Professor Robynne Quiggin, who is here on the panel with us, and any other First Nations and Indigenous people that are joining the webinar today or listening to the webinar afterwards.  I'd also like to acknowledge all the traditional custodians of the land on which you are joining from.  

It is also a moment for us to sort of reflect on.  As we know, it was deeply disappointing to see the racist incidents that happened during the Anzac Day, but it is also a strong reminder that acknowledgment alone is not enough.  It requires an ongoing, active commitment to respect, truth telling and standing against racism in all its forms and that has always been the spirit of the role that I know a lot of us here as practitioners undertake.

With that, today's webinar is very much focused on implementing the Universities Accord and at the heart of the Universities Accord was student equity and given that, it is quite important for us to talk about how do we translate the policy intent into policy practice.

So first of all, we will hear from a series of speakers, which is starting off with the ATEC Executive Director, David Turvey, who will be giving sort of a keynote as an opening address into what the ATEC plans are, then we will have some reflections from Professor Robynne Quiggin, and then we'll move into the panel discussion with Ian, Chris and Nicola. So I will hand over first to you, David.

DAVID TURVEY PSM:  Thanks very much, Sonal, and great to be here with everyone today.  Thanks very much for the invitation to join you.  
I'm coming to you from the lands of the Ngunnawal people in Canberra and it's a great pleasure to be here to talk about the ATEC, Australian Tertiary Education Commission, which is only new, actually legally only established yesterday.  

The legislation to establish the ATEC was passed by the Parliament just over a month ago and it legally took effect yesterday.  So I'm reminded   I don't know how many people know the story of Pinocchio, but I feel like today I'm a real boy, so I'm very excited that we're now formally in a legal establishment mode.

I'm going to spend a few minutes talking about the ATEC and what its role is.  I'll spend a couple of minutes talking about one of the key vehicles that we'll be using to be a sector steward, system steward, which is mission-based compacts.  I want to talk for a few minutes about some of the major equity funding programs and some work we're doing there.  I'd like to touch on our First Nations work program, and I'll also spend a minute or two talking about tertiary harmonisation.

"Keynote" is a very grand description for what I'm about to do.  Possibly "ramblings" might have been better, but I'll just get stuck into it.

So to start with, you would all know the ATEC was a recommendation of the Universities Accord, it's one of the core recommendations, and work has been underway for a while now to formally establish the ATEC.

It was stood up in an interim form 1 July last year and as I said, the legislation to establish the ATEC permanently passed the Parliament at the end of March and we're now in the formal establishment mode.

Permanent Commissioners will be appointed pretty soon is my understanding, so we'll have the full kind of model operating within the next few months.

The role of the ATEC is to be a system steward.  It's to work with the sector, to guide the sector, to help the sector collaborate to achieve better outcomes for all Australians and for the nation's priorities and a key part of that is to make the system work better for people who traditionally haven't had as much access or haven't done as well in the tertiary education system and so equity and inclusion is a kind of core element of the work that we'll be doing in ATEC and a core principle of how we'll be operating, I guess, and I'll talk a little bit about some of the mechanics of that.

One of the main things that the ATEC will be doing is entering into mission based compact.  So the ATEC legislation gives Commissioners two jobs, essentially two jobs.  One is to provide advice to government and to the sector, and the other is to enter into mission based compacts with table A and table B institutions under the HESA, Higher Education Support Act.  

Essentially, what these are is an agreement between the Commission and each institution which will capture three different sets of priorities.

The first is the Government's broader priorities, which will be articulated to the Commission through a statement of expectations from the Minister for Education to the Commissioners; the Commission's own priorities for the sector, which will be articulated in what we're calling a statement of strategic priorities for the sector; and then finally each institution's own priorities will be its own mission, its purpose, its strategies.  

They'll be articulated and they'll be set out   each of those three components will come together as part of an agreement between the Commissioners and the institution on how its role will contribute to the sector more broadly.

We're about to start the process of the first round of compacts literally in the next few days.  They will be for one year as a transition mechanism.  The legislation articulates four year compacts, but we'll start with a one year one partly because the formal legislative framework in terms of a funding model is still being kind of taken through the Parliament.  So we're about to start work on a one year compact with each of the unis and then next year we'll move into a four year compact cycle.

As part of those discussions for the compacts for 2027, the Commissioners have articulated a set of what we're calling performance domains, so that's the areas that the Commission is most interested in hearing from the sector about, one of which is equity, so those four   actually, there's six domains:  national priorities, which is kind of labour market need; equity is the second; the third is First Nations; joined up tertiary, tertiary harmonisation, is another one; research and teaching quality.  Those are the six domains that we'll be focussing on in our compact.

So in those discussions, we'll be asking institutions what they're doing about equity, we'll be putting forward some metrics and how we think about measuring equity, performance in the sector, but really to kind of get a joint view about how each institution is progressing towards the equity goals in the Accord.  So that will be a key mechanism that we'll be focusing on in the short term.

Another key component is what comes out of these compacts, I guess, is agreement about student load.  So the new funding model that the Government has agreed to implement moves to an arrangement where in the past the Government has given each university a funding envelope, they've given a bucket of money, I guess, to each university that they can then use to enrol students.  

In the new model, the Government is setting the total number of students that it wants to fund through Commonwealth-supported places at the system level and then the ATEC will be asked to allocate those places across the sector.  So one of the elements of these discussions we'll be having with each institution will be around how many student places they each get and how those student places relate to those priorities, both institutional priorities and the ATEC's priorities.

There's an interesting element in the Government's policy.  Some of you may have heard Minister Clare say that no equity student will miss out on a place and so we're kind of pretty close to figuring out what that means in practice.  

How this is going to work, the Government has set the overall total number of students that it wants to fund, as I said, through what we're calling the total allocation pool, but the Government's policy is that if there's evidence that there is strong demand from equity students to the point where equity students may miss out on a place, then the Minister can authorise an increase in the total allocation pool.  

So practically, the ATEC will be working with each institution to look at their demands, their student profiles, how many students are applying and being admitted, and where we see strong evidence of demand for equity students, we'll have the capacity to act on that to bring more places into the system to try to avoid equity students from missing out.

There's a little bit of work to do in law to get that given effect, but that's the intent of what we're about to do.

The other elements of the kind of broader funding landscape that we'll be working within, obviously you would all know about the needs based funding model.  Essentially, that's a top up in the funding model.  ATEC will allocate places.  Those places will then receive funding through the funding clusters.  

But in addition to that, each place where there are equity student characteristics will receive a top-up through the needs-based funding arrangements, which I'm told is $1.5 billion over some period that is not in my notes, but it's a lot of money and it's essentially targeted at First Nations students, students from a low SES background and regional and remote students.  So there are loadings, if you like, that will be provided to the institution to deal with the additional costs of students with those characteristics.  

Those loadings will be overlapping, so if students meet more than one of those criteria, they'll get additional loadings.  So that's a core part of the new funding model, so the basic funding everybody gets and then there's an additional loading on top.

In addition to that, there's a separate program called the Outreach Fund, which is aimed at trying to encourage more people to take up higher education and at the moment it's allocated through the universities themselves to fund activities that they would undertake to reach out to people who might otherwise have trouble accessing the higher education system to get them more connected with the system and have a better chance of succeeding.  

So we're thinking about that and going forward that program will be managed by the department, but the ATEC will be thinking about how that's working and whether there's better ways to do that.

Similarly, there's another program separate from the needs based funding arrangements which is called the Disability Support Program.

That has a number of elements, a core part of which is an additional loading provided to universities for students with disability and then an additional amount that's available to reimburse institutions for higher cost activities that they might be undertaking.

There's also, as you know Ian, from ACSES, would know that part of the funding that is coming from that bucket is helping to fund ACSES's work and then we're also providing funding to assist the Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training, which is hosted out of the University of Tasmania.

There are a few other small elements.  There's a broader project fund that can be used to pay for activities that are aimed at helping equity students.  A project that we're currently managing has actually just finished which is around Fee Free UniReady places.  So the University of Newcastle, we funded them to undertake a project to look at the design of Fee Free UniReady and how to make those sorts of courses work better for students coming into the higher education system.  

So that's just a snapshot of some of the kind of funding instruments and the broader policy architecture that we're working within.

Just quickly, I wanted to mention two other things. One is First Nations, and I feel a bit awkward about this because we're trying not to think about First Nations from an equity perspective.  We want a kind of First Nations leadership and centrality and really kind of cement the idea of First Nations people being at the heart of the higher education system and so deliberately separating First Nations issues from equity issues normally in our discourse, but given the audience today, I thought it would be worth talking about our role here and just articulate some of the architecture.  

So our legislation under the ATEC Act, we have up to five Commissioners, a chief Commissioner, who is full-time, up to three part-time Commissioners and one full-time First Nations Commissioner.

So in terms of our kind of formal legal structure, a First Nations Commissioner is one of two permanent Commissioners and they're full- time roles.  The First Nations Commissioner obviously will provide advice on First Nations issues, but also will be involved in all of the decision making that ATEC undertakes around its entire role in the tertiary system.

The legislation also requires us to establish a First Nations Advisory Committee, which is one of two required standing committees of the ATEC to focus our efforts on First Nations issues.

So we have a working group that's been helping us in the interim phase that will move into a formal committee structure soon.  One of the key things that we want to do here is to take forward and develop the higher education First Nations framework.  

There's a broader piece of work going on in the education policy generally from preschool all the way through to tertiary education around First Nations and their focus on the education system, so we would like to do a piece that supplements that, that adds a dimension about really how to make First Nations issues central to the higher education system in terms of governance and in decision making, but also student success.

We will most likely, going forward, be managing the Indigenous Students Success Program, which is a fund that the Government established to help students to access and succeed, First Nations students, and that funds a range of things from scholarships to tutorial assistance, mentoring.  It's very flexible in its use and so we'll be managing that.

We're also keen to make sure that that fund is working well.  I'm a little bit concerned about whether it's targeted properly, but I'd be interested in universities about that today, but that will be in our set of issues that we're managing.

Finally, I wanted to touch on our work on tertiary harmonisation.  I mentioned a joined-up tertiary system is one of the six domains that we'll be focusing on in our first round of compacts.  More broadly, though, we'll be developing what we're referring to as a tertiary roadmap and this is really about how we make vocational education and higher education work better together two separate sectors, but connected as a system and working in the best interests of students so that we can get the right skill, get people through the system as cheaply and as quickly as possible to have the right skills and the right experiences that are needed for economy and society.

I kind of raise this in this forum because the VET system obviously has a big role in kind of bringing people into tertiary education.  The VET system has a very strong role in particularly people that haven't done so well through the schooling system and have traditionally had a higher proportion of equity students than higher ed has.  

So we're very keen to make sure that VET and higher ed are kind of joined up systems that work well today together, that get good student outcomes, that move people through the system quickly.  

A key element of that will be development of a credit recognition framework, so how we think about people who have studied VET qualifications that might have their qualifications recognised for credit in a higher education program so that they're not learning the same things again and having to pay additional costs to undertake further study effectively when they already have that knowledge.  So that's a key part of the work that we'll be doing in that space.

That was pretty quick. I might just wrap up by saying the broad objective of the ATEC, as I said at the start, is to be a system steward.  That means working with the system, with higher education providers, VET providers and non uni providers as well.  We're not here to tell people what to do.  We're here to work with the sector to get better outcome for the sector to try to encourage a more collaborative approach and an approach that achieves a diverse, strong, high performing tertiary education system.

So I might leave it at that.  Thank you, Sonal.

SONAL SINGH:  Thank you for that, David.  A lot in there to unpack.

Some we've heard previously as well, but I think the roadmap that you talked about, the compacts, it sort of sounds like this year is an experimental year to see how things work and shape. There are some questions in there which we'll put later to you, but we will first probably move on to invite Professor Robynne Quiggin for your opening reflections following what you've heard from David.

PROF. ROBYNNE QUIGGIN AO:  Thank you, Sonal, and thank you, David. It's really lovely to listen to your remarks. 

As a Wiradjuri person, I acknowledge that I am on Gadigal land and acknowledge the traditional owners of this place and really echo Sonal's remarks about the importance of that for all of us in the sector and for all of us particularly here at UTS as well.  We do this because we really believe that it is important and a particularly important custom, tradition for us to maintain, recognising that this is unceded land and for us here at UTS we are on the land of the Gadigal people.

I was really heartened, David, to listen to all your remarks and the deep thinking, you know, that I think we really hope for in this kind of opportunity for real systems change and for that to be transformative and meaningful and to really hear, I think, echoed the voices of the Indigenous expertise and the collaboration that we can see from the Accord and to see that really filtering down into this independent steward of the system.  So that's really heartening.

Echoing some of the things that you said, really recognising that education is a human right, that this is a pivot to a more values based, needs based, rights based, I would say, approach to education and thinking about education as a human right and the many places in which our international human rights instruments that it is called out, including the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and the importance of it and how it impacts on housing, employment, our standing in the world and our quality of life.

It was really heartening also, David, to hear you talk about the recognition that First Nations people that being left behind in the system begins very early for us in particular parts of the country and lots of different bits, but particularly in rural and remote areas we get left behind out of the system and the real impact of that.  

I was heartened to hear the thinking about that going into the ATEC, going into the design of the ATEC, that this context because it's so important for the particular context for us, the diversity of context as well because it's absolutely place based, there is no one particular context, but those pieces that are so important to be woven into the approach to First Nations education and also just thinking about the six domains that there will be elements for us in all of them, the individual stream, but the elements that are relevant to us in all of those streams and really excited to hear about the KPIs there.

One of the things we've been thinking about here at UTS and I think is a useful way to think about KPIs is the usual measurements, you know, the metrics, the way we ordinarily think about them, but taking an Indigenous lens to those as well, what is the KPI from an Indigenous lens and how might we build that as well into measuring.  

So we start at the beginning in the development of policies and getting the input of people, but also in the measurement to really kind of take on board the idea of Indigenous impact, measurements.

So I'm not sure I'll say all that much more, I think we might move to the panel, except for just to reflect on the importance and I guess for lots of us when we think about having an advisory board, the gold standard these days for us is to be self determining and so thinking about the ways that in the development of the ATEC and the platform of the Commissioner and the advisory group that there is real potential to move to a very self determining model and increasing Indigenous governance throughout the domains and through that particular stream to bring forward the expertise, the understanding of contexts across the nation and place based and to think about the value of that as the real gold standard going forward.

I'm not sure I have that much to say.  I think it was really good to hear all about it.  I may park the time for practitioners and for people to ask questions and return to anything someone might want to ask me in particular, Sonal, thank you.

SONAL SINGH:  Thank you.  I think, and there's been something in the chat around it as well, the focus around access and education as a fundamental human right I think is a concept that we need to sort of focus on.

David, since I've got you here, just a question maybe for you around your remarks just what is ATEC's current thinking around translating the long term national targets into shorter term national and institutional targets through the compact?  Can you just elaborate on how you see that happening or is it still an experiment that you're going through?

DAVID TURVEY PSM:  Yes, look, I think   I mean, it's an excellent question.  I think there's a lot of work to do.  When I think about the Government's targets for tertiary attainment by 2050, so 8 in 10 of the population having a post-school education by 2050 and kind of supplementary elements of that and the role of both vocational education and higher education in that, which I think we need to focus on, there's a lot of work to do to kind of map the pathway forward.  
In the short term, the first round of mission based compacts  

I wouldn't describe it as experimental, we're using the word foundational, as a sort of learning experience, right?  So we've articulated a set of national kind of priorities in terms of labour market need and we're keen to hear the institutions' views about that and what they're doing to meet those needs.  

But I think, you know, as we move into the four-year compacts, that will need to sharpen up and be more precise.  So foundational to start with.

SONAL SINGH:  With those foundations, maybe some of the conversations sort of shaping it is around we've had the Australian Human Rights Commission publish the report and Robynne, you might want to jump in here as well sort of addressing the report on racism at universities as well, so do you think there's now sort of a scope coming for the sector to be able to collaborate on systemic antiracist approaches that can also support the wellbeing and success of students because we still seem to be seeing things, student equity in the work on disability separately, given the way the funding is set up, but should we be sort of seeing that as a whole of student perspective, experience perspective?

PROF. ROBYNNE QUIGGIN AO:  I'm happy to jump in, David, before you and then defer to you.  

I think that's a really important framing, Sonal, that equity and the student experience is really important to be seen together and to bring through the elements of cultural safety, antiracism and really ensuring that students that we bring in have a really safe and nurturing experience while they're here because I think the one thing that we know for Indigenous people is that we vote with our feet and we leave if that can't be met.  

So I think it's incredibly important to be thinking about equity and the compacts and the way that we think about valuing and looking after our students and participation is not just trying to rack up the numbers, it's about how we bring people through, keep them and bring a really strong, affirming experience through tertiary education in all its different forms.  

So it's a good callout, thank you.  I'll go to you, David.  

DAVID TURVEY PSM:  Yes, look, just to very quickly add from a practical perspective one of the ATEC's responsibilities now going forward will be to look after the threshold standards and what until yesterday was referred to as the Higher Education Standards Panel, which will now be known as the Higher Education Standards Committee, which is the other legislative committee under the ATEC framework.  

So we've taken on that work and the HESC was asked by the Minister to look at how racism is dealt with in the threshold standards and they're providing advice to the Government on that at the moment, so there will be further action on that in the near term.

SONAL SINGH:  Thanks for that, David, and I won't take much of your time.  I think moving on to the other panel members, I'd like to invite Ian,  Ian Li is the Director of Research at ACSES.  Ian, from a data perspective, what is needed, what are your thoughts when it comes to translating what ATEC is setting the foundations for and how can we sort of deliver on it?

PROF. IAN LI:  Thanks, Sonal, and thanks, David, for setting out the developments from ATEC's point of view and to Robynne for setting out your reflections from a First Nations perspective.

I'm going to start with some data and set up some further context.  So we know that the Accord's ambition is for population parity for underrepresented groups by 2050 and it helps to start thinking about that to look at where we are.  

The students from the four priority groups or equity groups are still underrepresented in higher education.  People from low SES are 25% of the population, but only 17% of university enrolments.  First Nations Australians are 3.8% of the population, but only 2.3% of them are students, and students from remote and regional Australia are 27% of the population, but only 20% of the student body.

Now, these gaps have been around since the Bradley Review that took place in 2008.  We've moved the dial a little bit, but we haven't moved it as far as we would like and the Accord is the latest and most structurally ambitious reform to attempt to close the equity gap.

Students with disability I haven't mentioned yet and that's because it's worth talking about them separately because there are nuances to the headlines around the   the headline data around them.  So enrolments of students with disability have actually grown significantly, from 5% of the undergraduate head count in 2011 to 13.5% in 2024.

On the surface, that might look like progress, but there are two important caveats.  First, the data might be unreliable.  Institutional reporting ranges from 5 to 23% of those students in institutions depending on the university, which almost certainly reflects disclosure and collection differences, rather than actual demographic variation.

So ACSES is actually doing some work to address this and hopefully we can guide the sector in introducing some consistency around data collection for students with disability in the future.

Now, the second caveat is that outcomes data for students with disability doesn't support the participation trend.  Students with disability have lower retention, lower completion rates, and a full-time employment rate after graduation that is nine percentage points lower than their peers and the employment gap between students with disability and students without disability has been widening, not closing, and there are also similar gaps in academic outcomes for the other equity groups that we can alter.  

So the two takeaways from this quick bit of data that I've talked about is that getting students in is going to be an enormous challenge, but keeping them there and making them succeed is also something else that we really need to put our nose to the grindstone for.

So back to the Accord's headline target of population parity by 2050, the Accord interim report had some growth modelling of that target.  By 2035, we need 60% of students entering the system to be from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, around 53% from regional and remote areas, and around 11% from First Nations communities.

There's no equivalent target for students with disability, but that's because of the caveats that I've mentioned and I think the first step is to work out the consistent definition and measurement.  So I've mentioned that important question for implementation is equitable outcomes for equity groups and I'll come back to that later.

David has done a good setting out of the policy reforms that are actually going to be in place, so I won't talk about that.  I would like to think about, firstly, how we get students into university.  As I've mentioned, the interim Accord report says that we have a really enormous task ahead of us with the proportion of students from those equity groups that need to enter the system by 2035.

So the first key consideration is how students get into university.  The school leaving pathway or the ATAR pathway has been diminishing in use.  In 2023, half of all domestic bachelor degree students were not recent school leavers and students from equity backgrounds are more heavily represented in non ATAR pathways.  

So students from equity groups tend to use non ATAR pathways to get access into higher education.  39% of low SES school leaver entrants and more than half of First Nations entrants use non ATAR pathways, so non-ATAR pathways are an important part of widening participation in higher ed for equity groups now and they will become increasingly important in the future.

The two most common non ATAR pathways are enabling programs, or Free Free UniReady programs, that David has mentioned and the VET pathway and that gives us some food for thought.

So firstly, enabling programs, or UniReady programs, what do we know about the proportion of students who use this pathway?  2024 data indicates that 6.2% of students in the system use that enabling program pathway.  That's a sharp growth, almost double, from similar data in 2019.  

So it's increased a lot and I think will increase more.

However, from an implementation point of view, I think there are two issues that we need to think about moving forward.  The first is that not all enabling programs are the same.  There is no nationally recognised taxonomy and common standard for enabling programs.  They are not part of the AQF.  

The second issue follows on from the first.  There is a diversity of enabling programs, which is not always a bad thing, but portability is an issue.  There's a lack of recognition across institutions if the student who did the enabling program did not do it at their institution.

I think that's a problem and that is a huge barrier in terms of creating effectiveness of the enabling program for students, especially for equity groups, into getting into university.

The other non ATAR pathway that I've mentioned is a VET qualification and around 10% of higher ed student are admitted through this pathway.  However, and David has already spoken to this as well, there are issues of inconsistent practices in credit recognition and this should be sorted out as a priority.  

So I'm really pleased to hear David share that this is a priority for ATEC and for the sector and that there are plans already currently in place to create a national framework.

Something else that I want to touch on in the pathway space is about student outcomes for those who are admitted through non ATAR pathways.  The evidence on student outcomes for those who come from non ATAR pathways is mixed and that's important for implementation planning because it's no longer just about getting them in.  

It's about helping them succeed once they get into university.  

So students entering through VET who are entering through a mature age pathway or other non ATAR basis consistently have lower first year retention, poorer academic performance, and they are nearly twice as likely to drop out in their first year and completion rates for those from non ATAR pathways have fallen around five percentage points over the last decade.

But there's also some positive things.  Where do pathways work better?  Students who have completed structured university diploma programs, where they have smaller cohorts, where they have scaffolded academic support and where they have clear transition pathways, they have success rates and academic outcomes comparable to those who came through direct entry or a school leaving pathway and that tells us something important.  

The evidence says that widening participation and widening pathways without redesigning the support model around them will not produce the outcomes that we are after.  There are pathways to get the students in, but the support model once they're at university tells us whether they will stay and succeed.

The outreach evidence also adds another layer.  So even before they get into university, even before they start off on those non-ATAR pathways, university outreach programs tend to reach students who are already on track.  This is what the research evidence tells us.  

These are not the most disadvantaged students that are actually getting access through the outreach programs.  They often arrive too late after students have already made subject and stream choices in year 9 or 10 and that already narrows their options.  So the research evidence tells us we need earlier, more structural intervention rather than later stage aspiration raising.

So drawing on the data and evidence that I've just presented, there are three things that I think are particularly important as we move into the implementation phase.  First of all, we need to have a focus on outcomes as much or even more than we have on just access.  So the evidence is consistent that enrolment numbers alone don't tell us whether equity goals are being achieved.  

We need to track first-year retention, we need to track completion rates, and we also need to track graduate outcomes beyond graduation and we need to do this by equity group, not just in aggregate.  

We need to understand how needs-based funding actually works here because it's not a performance funding model.  It's demand driven, or sort of demand driven.  Universities receive a per-student contribution for every eligible student they enrol and the amounts are scaled to reflect the relative attrition risk of each cohort.  

So the logic is that higher risk cohorts generate more funding.  But what it might mean in practice in isolation by itself is that a financial incentive for universities is to enrol, not to retain, so there needs to be some performance element and outcomes focus in terms of how we create the funding architecture for institutions.

Needs-based funding also has a reporting requirement.  From early 2027, universities need to report how the needs-based funding was spent by student life stage, equity cohort and activity type and that reporting obligation is where the real pressure on outcomes sits and institutions should be planning their needs-based funding spending with that accountability in mind.  

It's not a 2026 thing, but you have to spend with meeting that accountability requirement now, not later.

The second thing is that we need to account for intersectionality in planning.  We have the categories in national policy, the four groups that I've mentioned.  They are useful for data collection, but they don't map neatly into how disadvantage is actually experienced.

So 2024 data tells us that a third of First Nations students also live in low SES areas, nearly half of First Nations students are from regional or remote locations, and 1 in 5 First Nations students report a disability, almost twice the rate of the broader student population.  

So support programs that are only designed for one category at a time would sort of miss the point.  They will miss students who are navigating multiple compounding disadvantages simultaneously.  

So yesterday we were just interviewing students who were interested in participating in the Access Policy Symposium and this is the story that we hear, that they don't get access into those programs and one of them said, "I wish that they would tell us all about the different types of programs that can help people like me all at the same time, rather than telling me about them one at a time."  So implementation planning that takes intersectionality seriously needs to think about how services, funding and support reach students.

My third and last point is that evidence on outreach and targeted programs suggests that both initiatives, they are valuable, but they won't produce system level change on their own and that institutions where equity outcomes are the strongest are those where equity is embedded in institutional design   how courses are structured, how assessment is timed and designed, how student support is resourced and integrated, and how early intervention works.  

The needs based funding guidance is actually quite explicit about this distinction.  They have notes about eligible activities and ineligible activities.  The funding architecture, however, is still pointing towards participation.  So as mentioned earlier, retention and attainment are key to the Accord's ambition and institutions must generally redesign how they support students, rather than treat needs based funding and other reforms as a compliance exercise.  

So the data tells us where the gaps are, the evidence tells us the types of approaches that will produce outcomes, and it's really about integration and now we have a funding structure that is explicitly designed to support access and participation, but it will require institutions to still keep a focus on the pipeline pre-access participation and post access outcomes.  

So ATEC is now formally established, needs based funding is in its transition year with permanency planned and the reporting requirements will come in next year, so conditions for real change with some caveats are in place.

What the research consistently shows is that the institutions producing the best equity outcomes are not the ones with the most programs, they are the ones where equity is a design principle, rather than an add on.  

The practical challenge for the next phase is how universities will use the funding, use the targets, and use the reporting requirements to make that shift.  It's almost a cultural shift.  We have to have the entire institution change their mindset and bring people from all areas of the university together on this reform.

That's the implementation question and the answer will look very differently for every institution, depending on their student population, their geographic context, and where their biggest gaps currently sit.  
That's it from me.  I've done a lot of talking and I will pass it over to my colleague Dr Nicola Cull.  

DR NICOLA CULL:  Thank you so much, Ian, and thank you, Sonal, for having me and everyone.  Yes, so I'm Nicola Cull.  I'm the President of Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Association. 

Firstly, I just want to say, to reiterate, it was so helpful and hopeful, I want to say, to hear David's overview of ATEC and that framing, really humanising framing, of the work and thank you also to Robynne and Ian.  Gosh, there's so much information to take in.

So I'm just going to speak from a practitioner perspective because we are at that point, you know, where we're moving from the policy now into this really critical implementation stage and this is on the ground and this is where we either realise equity or we don't and hopefully we will.  

The Accord does just feel like such an important shift.  You know, the main shift is that policy is now being framed through that equity lens, which hasn't happened before in higher education, so it's an incredible opportunity to improve the outcomes here.

I think, as David said, with ATEC's system stewardship, with one of those focuses being on equity and inclusion, we're in such a good spot to really make some gains here.

So what really matters now, obviously, is how this plays out in practice for universities, for, you know, those who work in equity across the sector, and I think if we think about this work at its core it's on, as Ian was just talking about, that sort of continuum.  

It really starts with early outreach, going through the access, participation and success.  

But it also means, and again, Ian mentioned this, that we're doing   equity practitioners, we're trying to do two things at once here.  We're trying to support students to access and navigate the current system, which is inequitable, but while we're also trying to work within our institutions to make those systems more inclusive and equitable over time for long term change.

So, in practice, you know, practitioners are really we are at that intersection of policy and planning and we work, you know, across all the areas of the university, so we work with our faculties, with our student admissions, with our student experience, all the areas, and our role is to try to interpret policy and funding settings and translate those into what happens and what we do, what the institutions do.

Through that, I guess what I know from the inner sphere and working with colleagues across the sector is it really does give us a clear view of how inequity and equity show up in our system.

 It shows us where barriers are, it shows us, you know we know where the resources flow and what potentially can help to just progress for positive change and I think that perspective is critical from people doing the work.  It is critical when we're turning policy into those real outcomes and impact that we all want.

As we've just heard from David, there's such a clear direction and it does include that focus on system change, long term real impact.  So all of us practitioners across the sector are now working   and we have for years now, but we're really sort of influencing within our institutions how do we as an institution become more equitable, what do we need to change, and also that focus on the more connected student life cycle as well and greater emphasis on impact that Ian has just talked about, really finding what works, how we can do this.

I think the funding model, so the needs-based funding, great focus on participation and success, as Ian mentioned, really creates real positive opportunity to create that shift within institutions structurally, as Ian was sort of mentioning there.  How do we get equity once a student is in?  It's really in the teaching and learning, it's in curriculum design, it's in, yes, all of those things and with MDF that really gives an opportunity for universities to really do that and that supports all our students from equity backgrounds coming in.

But at the same time, obviously how funding models are shaped and the actual implementation, you know, does have a strong impact on what can be done and across the higher education sector, over the last few years, there has been strong foundation of outreach and equity work that's been built, particularly under HEPP, and that work is still really critical because the system itself, as we've just said, isn't equitable yet.  

So it's not stepping away from that work, but I think it's about doing both.  It's about continuing to invest in outreach and, as Ian said, early outreach is important and the access, equity access pathways into institutions whilst we're shifting those system level conditions, that long term change, because the programs that we have been delivering across the sector, they are important, these institutional programs.

However, that participation growth at scale will only happen when system level change has happened as well and that's why it's exciting right now.  We've got a foundation, but we're also really moving as a sector towards systems change.

I guess another point, though, just to make when talking about funding models is that we are seeing a little bit of misalignment across the student life cycle in terms of funding.  In this transition year, the outreach funding has reduced and, as Ian said, it's really quite crucial that we do that work, but whilst expectations for participation growth also increased a lot.  

So that's a tension that probably needs working through and, in particular, because it was just so wonderful to hear David say that there's an intention there that no student from an equity background will miss out on a place.  So we really need that sustained focus on outreach, that culture shift as Ian was talking about, early outreach, because otherwise many of our students won't get to the point of enrolment and that's where participation rates are going to rise.

So we've really got to focus on that, especially in funding models.
This includes   I know many institutions have specifically designed equity access preparation transition programs which are non ATAR pathways based, but that work currently sits between sort of outreach and participation, so we have to consider that as well.

So I guess, when we come back to it, what the Accord is saying is we need to grow participation, we need to do that through equity and that means reaching people, students who aren't currently on a pathway into tertiary education or higher education.  

As practitioners, we know that this work is deeply relational, it's a culture shift often as well, as Ian mentioned, it's built on trust over time, you know, it's through that consistent engagement with schools and communities that institutions work with, and often done in concert with the organisations, and I know Chris can attest to that and will speak to that in a regional context in a minute.  

So I think we need to just be mindful and consider that all of those elements across that continuum, outreach all the way through to success, are all connected and they're interrelated.  So from a practitioner point of view, we want to see that those funding models really work together and are flexible enough to support all of that work across that continuum.  

The collaboration aspect that David spoke about is really welcomed.  I think that's fabulous.  It is something we are seeing across the sector more so recently with institutions collaborating across themselves and also with partners, but I think that's really a great opportunity to build on there and that's an area that EPHEA can contribute to as well by sharing what's worked in practice and strengthening that collaboration across the sector.

I do just want to make we're talking about funding models.  I just want to make a point here about a sort of systems thing, but as I mentioned before, over the last few years there has been significant capability and infrastructure across the higher education sector in terms of equity and, you know, as an equity practitioner, we don't just deliver programs, we do also influence and drive systems change within our institutions, but a lot of that work just isn't visible.  It's kind of not reported on anywhere, but it's actually really crucial, important work.

So it's just something to bear in mind that we don't unintentionally want to   you know, funding changes might unintentionally reduce that capability, you know.  We don't want to risk losing not only the programs, but the expertise behind them because it will become harder to get that structural change that we're looking for in our institutions.

So very quickly to end, with all that said, I've just got a few considerations that we might think about in terms of institutions, (inaudible) is central in decision making and planning; keeping that student life cycle connected, as we've spoken about; strengthening collaboration is super important; and importantly, that focus on outcomes and what's actually changing, what's actually changing in our institutions.  

Also, I guess a few considerations from a practitioner perspective in terms of, you know, as we continue the funding models continue to be shaped and developed that feel sort of important, I think one is that recognition of the diversity of institutions and so allowing enough flexibility in those funding models so universities can respond to their context to achieve what we're being asked to achieve and provide that longer term funding stability would also be important in this work, so we've mentioned long term and relational.  

Maintaining that system capability that I have spoken about too, that's really important, and I think, Ian, you touched on this, but really making sure that that student life cycle, the funding model supports all the work and making sure there's no gaps because they're two separate models.

Supporting collaboration across the sector, I think that's really a key one.  Collaboration is much more effective, so collaboration, not competition.  Finally, I know this is going on, just that broad range of consultation during this process of shaping these models would be amazing.  

In that context, I do just want to say that EPHEA has had really constructive positive engagement with ATEC this year and we hope that that continues, I'm sure it will, so that's really good.

So just to close, I actually just want to close off with, you know, we know that this policy change is fantastic direction, but it is how it's implemented.  We do know this work is really complex.  Listening to all the data from Ian, you know, it's complex and it's long term work and it is going to take that collective effort.  

I just want to bring it back to what both David and Robynne said, actually, about that.  They spoke about access to and equity in education, it's a right.  It's actually about justice and we really need to keep that in the forefront of our mind to guide us as we go forward.  I will leave it there and I'm going to hand over to Chris.

CHRIS RONAN:  Thanks, Nicola.  The joys of going last, I have 3 minutes, so this will be fun, but I'll try to land some quick, quick points.  I'm the co CEO of Study Hubs Australia and we're really focused on embedding study hubs as part of the tertiary system, which is sort of a theme that we've talked about here.

So a couple of potential provocations to wrap up, I think, and I want to go to the headline Accord goal, and I'll try to do this quickly.  That 8 out of 10 in terms of people accessing tertiary well, participating in tertiary education by 2050 is a very ambitious target and if you think in regional Australia, how are we going to do that because universities and tertiary providers aren't everywhere.  We certainly can't move 8 out of 10 people to metropolitan areas.  That's just impractical.  We have to think differently.  

I think this is a challenge that we saw through the Accord from the community led study hub perspective and potentially the risk around the implementation of the Accord is that it's the sector with good intentions looking at itself to solve challenges within the sector for people who sit ostensibly outside the sector and there is a risk there and I think sort of the broader point is that this is a societal challenge and in regional and rural communities it's about the community itself.

So how might we do things differently?  It's fantastic that there's a joined up system and all of the reforms happening in tertiary education are great, but if we're really serious as a nation about lifting participation in rural remote communities, then we have to think differently.

I think the study hubs are a good example of that because they are communities who have rolled up their sleeves and had a crack at doing that on themselves and for themselves and what we've got in this Accord moment is two things.  

We know that communities are doing great work and are widening participation where they are and the thing that makes study hubs successful is that they are place based and locally run and locally driven.  But on the other hand, we've got a government agenda that's arguably more coordinated and centralised, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but one could argue those two things are moving in opposition and intention.

So the nuanced question is how might we do both and I think that's sort of what we see our role is, how might we support communities to have that agency and also participate in the work that ATEC is doing and the broader, I guess, tertiary system.  To do that, we really have to, I think, look at it as a social challenge and societal challenge more broadly.  
I think just one other comment is we've been here before.  

There's a macro policy cycle in tertiary education.  Every 30 years or so we have this conversation about equity and access.  If we go right back to Menzies in the early 1960s, in the Martin Report in that era, he really looked at the importance of opening access and he also acknowledged that universities weren't the sole drivers if we were going to do that.  In his time, it was about quality of advanced education and that's something in terms of a mechanism.  

We fast forward to the Dawkins Review, you know, similar discussions sort of happened and we fast forward another 30 years now, we're in this moment again.  I think it's okay and it's unfair for the expectation to be on universities to do all of the heavy lifting in equity.  They do a fantastic job, but we have to think about how the community, how things like the study hubs can do it.

So I'm hopeful and optimistic that we don't fall into the same traps of those 30 year policy cycles and that we embrace, I guess, this complexity that's a little bit uncomfortable for universities to work with communities, for the Government to work with communities, but if we are genuine about these targets and genuine and the evidence is there with study hubs as part of that mechanism we can do it, then we have to be able to work together.  

So I'm conscious of time and I can talk underwater with a mouthful of marbles, but I will sort of wrap it up there, but I might throw back to you, Sonal.

SONAL SINGH:  Thank you for that, Chris.  I think, on closing, with that hope and optimism, making sure that our practitioners have been provided all the necessary tools and the funding and the agency and with the data and evidence that we have got and making sure that we've got that First Nations lens and self-determination, we can actually lay a solid foundation for ATEC to drive the change that we want to.  

Thank you, everyone, for listening to us.  We will be in touch post this webinar with a recording and with an email regarding all the links as well and we will try to make an attempt to address your questions as well.  So thank you, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.  Bye.