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Tough going for country students--reportThe report of a tracking study released October 22 confirms country students fare much worse than their metropolitan counterparts in the take-up of university places. By Kevin Balshaw - 22nd October 2009 - Back to News The report of a tracking study released October 22 confirms country students fare much worse than their metropolitan counterparts in the take-up of university places.
The Member for Eastern Victoria, Philip Davis, says the report, Deferring a University Offer in Regional Victoria, adds to a growing weight of evidence pointing to the need for greater support to assist country students into higher education.
The latest report, he said, accorded entirely with the findings of a recent Foundation for Young Australians report, How Young People are Faring, and the Parliament Education and Training Committee’s inquiry report, Geographical Differences in the Rate in Which Victorian Students Participate in Higher Education.
Mr Davis said proposed Federal Government changes making it harder to qualify for the Youth Allowance would accentuate the difficulties and disadvantages facing country students who wanted to undertake university courses.
In Parliament recently, Mr Davis said the planned tightening of eligibility criteria for the youth allowance would exacerbate the disparity in higher education opportunities between city and country students.
He called on the State Government to pursue the case with the Commonwealth for country students to continue to have ready access to the allowance.
"Students from areas like Gippsland and East Gippsland face substantial barriers to the opportunity of higher education," he said. "For them, the problems are largely financial, and they are compounded by the fact that governments are unsympathetic to their needs."
The report released today is based on research commissioned by a number of non-metropolitan Local Learning and Employment Networks (LLENs), including Gippsland East and Baw Baw-Latrobe, and the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria.
It presents the 2009 results from a longitudinal survey of students who completed Year 12 in 2006 and deferred a place in university the following year.
Mr Davis said it found a trend of increasing regional disadvantage was evident in
the pattern of rising rates of deferral among regional school completers.
In 2007, 15.7% of regional Victorian school completers deferred a place at university, two and a half times the rate of deferral among metropolitan students.
The main reasons they gave were cost-related factors and financial barriers.
The report notes: "The costs and challenges of moving away from home, of finding and paying for accommodation, and of working long hours to support themselves financially present an insuperable burden to some.
"A lack of access to local tertiary providers or to a very limited range of tertiary options weighs heavily on such students, compared with the educational choice which presents itself to their metropolitan counterparts."
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: kevin.balshaw@parliament.vic.gov.au
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