What is needed now in student equity – COVID-19 response

This week one of the most influential leaders in the history of higher education in Australia, Professor Denise Bradley passed away.

Prof Bradley advocated for equity to be foundational goal of universities in Australia. She was also a fierce advocate on ensuring people from low SES backgrounds have the transformational opportunity of a good education.

Equity issues affecting students are starkly apparent in the current climate. Student poverty is emerging as a major concern in the escalating response to COVID-19, as casualisation of the workforce in the face of the pandemic has exposed the cracks of an economy increasingly relying on workers with no job security.

Students as a group are strongly represented amongst both casual workers and those living close to the breadline. The Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion is keenly aware of the financial stresses facing many of our students at UTS, as we work directly with individuals in some of the groups most affected.

As part of the university’s overall response, we have been planning support mechanisms for key groups who are most vulnerable to the economic impacts of COVID-19, and looking for ways we can engage students to benefit local communities who are also feeling the impact.

Supporting UTS students from equity backgrounds

Students from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds already face significant financial hurdles in achieving higher education degrees at UTS, as their visa status makes them ineligible for Commonwealth supported places.

Twenty-nine of our students who are enrolled at UTS through the Humanitarian Scholarship program have already requested financial support to cope with COVID-19 measures. These students are unable to access government social service support.

We have liaised with the Accessibility and Financial Assistance services at UTS to ensure these students are able to access hardship grants, vouchers for food, and laptops. We are also offering moral support with regular contact via phone calls and emails.

Times like this highlight how important our institutions are to advocate for people who are at risk and vulnerable in society. In this case, we are very much a public institution.

The Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion also employ 75 UTS students from equity backgrounds as Equity Ambassadors. They are the tutors and assistants for our Widening Participation Strategy (WPS) activities, which includes the U@Uni Academy for high school students from partner schools in South West Sydney. Due to COVID-19, we are now revising program delivery. Most of the WPS activities are to be delivered virtually by our Equity Ambassadors for the rest of Term 1.

Instead of the regular tutoring sessions, weekly Zoom drop-ins have been scheduled for Equity Ambassadors to maintain engagement and provide pastoral support to the U@Uni Academy students. Senior ambassadors will continue to engage with the new ambassadors via email and zoom to offer support, training and connection.

Engaging students to help the community

Our responsibility to communities does not stop outside of campus. We are looking to innovate ways to deliver services to communities within the current restrictions and uncertainty, including proposals to engage our SOUL student volunteers.

Students enrolled in community engaged coursework also continue working in partnership with small to medium not-for-profits. Using online platforms to support social distancing, business and marketing students are working with organisations such as the Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association of NSW and Making Waves Foundation to provide programmatic and strategic support.

Student contributions in the current context are not limited to our work with external partners. Student-led projects, to identify critical needs and design ways that other students and staff can help vulnerable groups within our UTS student community, are under consideration.

We are particularly mindful of the role we play as part of the community that we are embedded in. Our local precinct work that connects us to the aged populations and those living in social housing provides a foundation for a rapid response at a time of need. As a trusted source, we are considering the role we can play in contributing to the sharing of reliable information about the resources that are available to communities.

Our efforts are supported by an incredible community at UTS. Many student volunteers are still maintaining their volunteering whilst also following social distancing guidelines. They continue to contribute to online tutoring and support, customer service for charity donation lines and a variety of other innovative responses.

What has become very clear is that our students and staff feel strongly about the public purpose role a university can play in moments of crisis. This is incredibly inspiring to witness.

U@Uni Academy and WPS students

We also have a responsibility to the high school students enrolled in our U@Uni Academy – the program to increase intake of low SES students by opening the door to 300 young people each year to study at UTS, following an intensive two-year program – as well as senior students who have been part of our WPS support program.

Many of these students live in families who have been severely affected by job losses resulting from business shutdowns, and are at risk of falling on the wrong side of the digital divide, further impacting their education and potential to succeed in life, both financially and in terms of personal fulfilment. As some parents of the school students are being made redundant, our partner schools are concerned about the impact this will have on students’ learning and home environment.

In response, we are funding InspiredEd's HSC4Me app subscriptions for our low SES high school students in Year 12 in our partner schools. This is scaffolded by school teachers and Equity Ambassadors as part of the learning support provided to Year 12 students.

We are maintaining online communication with our U@Uni students, currently in Year 11, to ensure they remain engaged with Academy. We have funded to configure the students’ online learning portal for the Academy to enable students to download individual reports and engage with the online tool to reflect on their learning.

In addition to these measures, we are undertaking weekly Zoom Meetings with teachers in our partner schools to continue engagement. We will continue to work closely with these schools to try and mitigate any impact on program participation by these students.

Our response is a work in progress, as we react to a developing situation. Now more than ever, as a sector, all universities need to be collaborative and innovative in supporting our equity students both in universities and in schools, to assure student success for all.