The Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success acknowledges Indigenous peoples across Australia as the Traditional Owners of the lands on which the nation’s campuses are situated. With a history spanning more than 60,000 years as the original educators, Indigenous peoples hold a unique place in our nation. We recognise the importance of their knowledge and culture, and reflect the principles of participation, equity, and cultural respect in our work. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and future, and consider it an honour to learn from our Indigenous colleagues, partners, and friends.

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You are reading: ‘You going to uni?’ Exploring how people from regional, rural and remote areas navigate into and through higher education

Written by Dr Janine Delahunty1

The overarching objective of the Fellowship entitled ‘You going to uni?’: Exploring how regional, rural and remote people navigate into and through university’, was to explore risks to university completion for those in regional, rural and remote locations of Australia. While the original proposal focused on regional students, the participation of some from remote regions broadened this focus. However, to also be inclusive of rural students, the acronym ‘RRR’ will be adopted throughout the report, as widely accepted when referring collectively to regional, rural and remote1 (Roufeil and Battye, 2008). Where appropriate, however, distinctions will be made between these groupings. The problem motivating the Fellowship inquiry was the consistently low rates of university completion for RRR students over the past decade. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data (2021), the proportion of RRR people with a degree qualification remains half that of people in major cities. Thus, the aim of the fellowship was to understand what factors contribute to this persistent disparity, and by taking a strengths-based approach to also capture what enables students to persist.

Read the full report, here: ‘You going to uni?’ Exploring how people from regional, rural and remote areas navigate into and through higher education

1University of Wollongong

Regional and remote Participation Attainment/transition out NCSEHE University of Wollongong NCSEHE Fellowship report Policy Practice Research 2022
‘You going to uni?’ Exploring how people from regional, rural and remote areas navigate into and through higher education
Janine Delahunty, 2022
NCSEHE, University of Wollongong