NCSEHE Director Sarah O'Shea presents at the Deakin University National Students as Partners (Virtual) Roundtable, 'Learning through Partnerships'.

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2. • Considering educational equity in the era of Widening Participation
• Equity and the HE learner
• What might a ‘Students as Partners’ approach contribute?
• One case study
• Recommendations and key learnings for the COVID era

3. • One third of school leavers globally now attend university
but many countries record 50% participation (Marginson,
2016).
• Attendance will increase - estimates that the thirty years
between 2000 – 2030 will see a growth of 281%
(Calderon, 2018). Post COVID-19 (and despite fee
changes), HE attendance will continue to grow due to
limited employment options.
• Retention rates for some populations remain
consistently lower than the national average – also
does not consider the issue of cumulative disadvantage.
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Low SES 16.4 17.4 18.8 19.1 19.6 18.7 20.5
Disability 16.5 16.0 17.6 17.4 17.6 17.4 18.7
Indigenous 26.7 27.6 25.4 26.2 25.2 25.8 28.8
Regional 17.2 18.2 19.5 19.8 20.2 19.7 21.6
Remote 23.0 22.9 21.8 22.2 21.4 22.8 22.8
NESB 9.6 10.0 10.7 10.5 11.4 11.3 11.1
Australia 13.2 14.0 15.2 15.3 15.7 15.5 16.4
Table 1: Domestic Undergraduate Attrition Rates: Australia and Equity Groups,
2011 to 2017: Koshy, 2020

4. • We know that certain student cohorts feel ‘excluded’ in the
HE field – this is not only reflected in the statistics on
retention but also via the sense of belonging that students
report.
• Differences in educational experience are manifested in a
variety of ways: for example those students from more
advantaged backgrounds are the majority in elite, more
established universities (Polesel et al. 2017; Southgate et
al. 2018). Whilst students from poorer, less resourced
environments are more numerous in the younger, regional
institutions (Nelson et al. 2017). Differences in
postgraduate outcomes are also noted (O’Shea, 2020)
• So while students from more diverse backgrounds appear
to exercise ‘choice’ in attending university, this is often a
limited choice.
When you are relatively consistently told that
with your demographic, your background, you’re
specifically more likely to fail, it sort of sets up
that whole culture of low expectations.
(Bailie, 27, Disability, Low-SES, R&R, 3rd Year:
O’Shea, 2017-2019)
I do continue to feel somewhat of an outsider
compared to students who attended private schools
with the kids of the professors or were part of the
rowing or yacht clubs… or the kids that attend
colleges that their families have attended for
generations. Against this type of cultural familiarity,
I cannot compete.
(Male, 31-40, Low-SES: O’Shea, 2017-2019)

5. • Certain student populations are constrained by material circumstances and also, by access to
certain types of cultural and knowledge capital (Naidoo, 2005; Reay,1998)
• Students are expected to seamlessly adopt to a neo-liberal discourse of the individual, who is largely
characterised as an ‘entirely free and autonomous agent able to make “rational” choices in the
(higher education) marketplace’ (Moreau & Leathwood 2006, 37).
‘[i]nequality [is] explained by personal qualities and
abilities rather than…unequal life chances rooted in social class differences’
(Lehmann, 2007, 632).

6. • SAP offers a disruption to the accepted power paradigm within HE, providing ‘an act of
resistance to the traditional, often implicit, but accepted, hierarchical structure where staff
have power over students’ (Matthews, 2017, 6).
• An opportunity for ‘brave’ spaces (Cook-Sather, 2016)
• Focussing on ‘bravery’ acknowledges how attending HE, particularly for equity students,
can sometimes be difficult and demanding work – creating authentic trust filled
partnerships provides one way to disrupt unquestioned relationships in the HE space.

7. Objectives:
• Create a student/staff committee that
collaboratively ‘unpacks’ the ‘student transition
experience’ in one School to create a series of
activities and foci designed to support/ retain
students.
• Initiate a Student as Partners culture within the
School (and the Faculty) to embed this approach
and influence future policy and procedures.
• Based on the deliberations of the SaP committee,
a peer mentoring program was developed
(SAPiM)

8. • Student / staff designed including mentor training (delivered
collaboratively by staff & students)
• Student-centred recruitment strategies for both mentors and
mentees
• Regular meetings to reflect upon the program and also,
consider changes / different approaches
• Social events and also informal meetings – again at student
mentor request

9. • Students and staff working together offer the potential to think ‘outside the box’
• SaP activities offered the space for real world and authentic application
This committee has allowed both staff and students to voice their ideas on how to best
support not only learning but general university life for all commencing students. I have
thoroughly enjoyed being apart of this committee and I believe that through 'working
together' we can continue to support and further improve transition to university life.
(Student Committee Member)
…to be able to sit at a table as an equal with our undergrad students for me,
that was an uplifting experience…I believe it’s worthwhile and as long as we
can put in place a structure that will enable students to be able to benefit from it
and that it’s sustainable.
(Staff Committee Member)

10. • Outreach and equity interventions generally
developed by staff who may not have the necessary
‘insider’ knowledge about the complex life
circumstance of these students. Well-meaning
interventions may slide unintentionally towards deficit
perspectives that regard these students as lacking
(knowledge, wealth, cultural capitals) and in need of
‘aspiration raising.’
• The work needed to create trust filled relationships
that are authentic and also, not just tokenistic in
application
• Scaffold the transformative potential of SaP for both
students and staff but also ‘keep it on track’ with a
partnership agreement

11. • Partner activities in the equity field needs to utilise multiple channels of contact for student partners
recognising that some cohorts do not regularly engage in on-campus groups or associations. There
is also a need to explicitly and deliberately invite students with diverse life experiences to
participate in any partnership programs.
• This should never be about ‘listening to student voice’ as this assumes a positionality of student
as consumer, instead the focus should be on collaboration, with power equally held by all parties and
all outputs and activities characterised by immediacy and authenticity.
• Work at establishing students as THE experts – validate prior learning and experience, including
rethinking (or extending understanding about) the nature of student engagement and what this
entails for different learners – this may require an unlearning of assumptions

12. COVID-19 has universalised disadvantage in Australian higher education – all students are ‘equity’
students
SaP offers huge potential as we emerge from pandemic:
- Co-designed mental health programs
- Transition programs embedded in the COVID student experience
- Online offerings – co-design with students who have been totally online for the last 6-12 months
- Research opportunities
- What else…?

14. Based on what you have heard today:
• How might you apply (or how are you already applying) the Student as Partners approach
to the student equity field?
• What new SaP initiatives are you considering that would target equity cohorts and/or
specific COVID related issues?
• What is one take-home message you have based on today’s session?

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16. Calderon, A. (2018). Massification of Higher Education Melbourne, RMIT: 1 - 29. Retrieved from
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Retreived from https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/818-mapping-background-2014.pdf.
Cook-Sather, A. (2016). “Creating Brave Spaces within and through Student- Faculty Pedagogical Partnerships.” Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education.
18(Spring): 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1109/ESTC.2014.6962775.
Lehmann, W. (2007). "I just didn't feel like I fit in": The role of habitus in university drop-out decisions. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 37(2), 89-110.
Marginson, S. (2016). The worldwide trend to high participation in higher education: dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems. Higher Education, 72, 413-
434.
Moreau, M-P & Leathwood, C., (2006). Graduates' employment and the discourse of employability: a critical analysis. Journal of Education and Work, 19(4), 305-324.
doi:10.1080/13639080600867083
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Nelson, K., Picton, C., McMillan, J., Edwards, D., Devlin, M., & Martin. K. (2017). Understanding the completion patterns of equity students in regional
universities. National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE), Perth: Curtin University. Retrieved from
https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/publications/completion-patterns-of-equity-students-in-regional-universities/
Polesel, J.,Leahy, M., & Gillis. S., (2018). “Educational Inequality and Transitions to University in Australia: Aspirations, Agency and Constraints.” British Journal of
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Southgate, E., Grimes, S., & Cox. J., (2018). “High Status Professions, Their Related Degrees and the Social Construction of ‘Quality.’” In Achieving Equity and
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