Smoothing the pathway to university

New community-led outreach initiatives will be established in regional and remote communities across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria as part of a project to inspire young people from underrepresented backgrounds to consider a university pathway.

The Eastern Australia Regional University Centre Partnership (EARUCP) is a collaboration of 19 universities and 15 Regional University Centres (RUC) across Queensland, NSW, ACT and Victoria led by the Country Universities Centre (CUC) and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

The project employs a coordinated, community-led approach to widening university participation and school outreach. RUCs are leading the co-design of innovative programs to address their unique community challenges, while drawing on the knowledge and experience of their university partners.

Assistant Minister for Education and Regional Development Anthony Chisholm said the project was one of two higher education outreach projects targeting regional and remote communities selected to share in $6.5 million funding from the Australian Government. 

“The broad-reaching project will deliver a range of activities, including building academic and life skills, career exploration, and mentorship programs to support students to consider the higher education opportunities available to them. This includes supporting students to explore a wide variety of higher education pathways tailored to the needs and interests of partner communities and the students themselves,” said Senator Chisholm.

The project will also focus on building local capacity to ensure participating communities have the resources they need to keep supporting local students to consider a university pathway going forward.

Chris Ronan, acting CEO of the CUC, said the partnership approach with UTS is unique in Australian higher education.

“The partnership is one that genuinely respects the knowledges and practices of regional communities and strives to work with them to create something new for collective impact, rather than prescribe a predetermined approach to outreach and widening participation activities.

“This new approach reimagines widening participation in regional Australia and takes practical steps to work alongside regional communities to develop their own solutions to supporting young people to access higher education in their community. UTS has been instrumental in working across the sector to build support for the CUC and Regional University Centre approach to widening participation and for creating the conditions for genuine collaboration where 19 universities can work together.

Sonal Singh, from the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion at UTS, said there is significant momentum and appetite locally for RUC-led outreach initiatives thanks to community consultation and engagement.

“Trust and reciprocity in large education consortiums have been identified as significant enablers of sustainable partnerships. The core principle of the EARUCP has been to encourage universities to escape their institutional bounds and work in a new university-agnostic space collaboratively with other universities and RUCs.”  

The Eastern Australia Regional University Centre Partnership project is being funded under Phase 2 of the Government’s Regional Partnerships Project Pool Program, which aims to empower regional and remote students to aspire to higher education, and support universities and Regional University Centres to build sustainable partnerships with local communities.