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Country students need extra uni supportThe Member for Eastern Victoria, Philip Davis, says the State Government should put its full support behind a Youth Parliament Bill that seeks increased support for students who have to move out of home to attend university. By Kevin Balshaw - 9th October 2009 - Back to News The Member for Eastern Victoria, Philip Davis, says the State Government should put its full support behind a Youth Parliament Bill that seeks increased support for students who have to move out of home to attend university.
The Youth Parliament, in its annual sitting at the Victorian Parliament earlier this month, was critical of proposed Federal Government changes to the Youth Allowance as being unduly harsh on students from country areas.
Mr Davis said the Youth Parliament had produced a soundly argued case on behalf of country students, and the onus was now on the State Government to pursue it vigorously with the Commonwealth.
Its move had been reinforced, he said, in a report this week of the Foundation for Young Australians, How Young People are Faring, that found unemployment among people aged 15 to 19 had soared from 12.2% to 18.5%. This would preclude an increasing number of intending tertiary students from working to qualify for the Youth Allowance.
"Already it is the case that a far lower proportion of country students than city students attend university, and the reason is simply that they and their families cannot afford it," Mr Davis said.
"This was a primary finding of the State Parliament Education and Training Committee’s year-long inquiry, Geographical Differences in the Rate in which Victorian Students Participate in Higher Education, which was handed down only a little over two months ago.
"The planned tightening of eligibility criteria for the Youth Allowance will exacerbate the present disparity in higher education opportunities between city and country students.
"The barriers to participation are especially severe for young students from areas that are more distant from Melbourne and for those living in smaller communities, as we are seeing in Gippsland and East Gippsland."
Mr Davis said he had been advised a pending study report prepared by Melbourne University for local learning networks would paint an even more grim picture of the higher education prospects for country students than emerged from the report to State Parliament.
"This will provide substantive evidence that country students are deferring the take-up of university places at a far higher rate than those in the city, and that those who defer are far less likely than city students to take up their places beyond the period of deferral.
"In this context, the changes to criteria for the Youth Allowance will have a devastating impact."
Mr Davis said the present barriers to higher education for country students and the case to provide them with more support was put forcefully in the Education and Training Committee’s findings, as explained in this extract from the foreword to the report:
"Time and again, the Committee heard about the difficulties faced by young school leavers in rural and regional areas who are contemplating leaving home to study. This exciting time in young people’s lives inevitably brings a multitude of challenges, as they farewell family and friends and branch out into new environments. However, an even greater concern for many of these young people and their families is the high cost of university study, particularly the cost of living away from home. The Committee heard that these concerns are responsible for a disproportionately high university deferment rate among rural and regional students, many of whom may never go on to pursue their studies.
"Student income support is therefore a major contributing factor in university participation. While the Committee welcomes recent national reforms to enable more students from low-income families to access Youth Allowance, it is concerned that the specific circumstances of rural and regional young people still have not been adequately addressed. Already, many such students defer their studies to meet eligibility criteria for income support and this route to financial independence is set to become even more difficult under the new system. In the Committee’s view, all young people who must relocate to undertake their studies should be eligible to receive student income support."
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: kevin.balshaw@parliament.vic.gov.au
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