In February of this year The Australian first reported on a legal action brought by a QUT staff member against other staff members, several students and against QUT itself. The incident which triggered the dispute actually occurred back in May 2013 and involved the matter of access to computers located in QUT's Oodgeroo Unit at the Gardens Point campus. The role of the Oodgeroo Unit is to provide academic and support services for QUT's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
It is obviously not appropriate to make comment on matters currently before the Federal Circuit Court or caught up in other related legal proceedings. However, it may be useful to again place on the record QUT's approach to the support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and, indeed, of other students - especially those from low socio-economic backgrounds - whom we seek to assist.
At the outset, QUT unapologetically stands by its longstanding and hitherto uncontroversial practice of providing a support unit and services dedicated to encourage and assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in their education here. The majority of Australian universities host similar units, and have done so over a long period, and there is a reason for this: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are amongst the most disadvantaged in our country, and the opportunity to achieve a university degree can have a transformative impact on their career, life prospects and respective communities. Productivity Commission Reports commissioned since 2002 demonstrate that, on a wide range of socio-economic indicators, there remains a great deal of work to be undertaken to close the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians.
For its part, QUT is proud of the participation, retention and completion rates for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Our commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students also goes back to the establishment of QUT more than twenty-five years ago. We now have some 670 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander undergraduate students and, pleasingly, their numbers are increasing in business, science and engineering, as well as in health, law, education and creative industries. Improvements are also occurring at the postgraduate level. And while it is the case that only about 1.7 per cent of our total student population is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (well short of the 2.5 per cent which would represent parity against that of south-east Queensland’s general population), that figure has edged up consistently over recent years (it was 1.3 per cent in 2011).
Of more interest perhaps, the drop-out (attrition) rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at QUT in 2015 was 15.9 per cent (precisely the same figure as our overall undergraduate population), while the success rate (subjects passed) of our Indigenous undergraduates was, at 76.5 per cent, just shy of the 79.7 per cent for our overall student population.
We are convinced that the academic and support services we provide our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at QUT is a major contributor to their study success and high rates of completion. And one of the key elements of that support system is the Oodgeroo Unit, which helps Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students with academic, personal and cultural support. In particular, the Oodgeroo Unit provides dedicated spaces where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students can use computers, work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students, and access learning support.
These support services are not in any way a form of segregation or discrimination. Rather their intent - which is lawful - is to assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to succeed at university. Since 1989 successive Commonwealth Indigenous higher education policies have directed and funded programs of this kind across the country. Indeed, under the Commonwealth Indigenous Support Program, universities are required to improve the access, participation, retention and success of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and also to report on these metrics.
Such programs also are not in any way inconsistent with Federal or State discrimination laws; in fact these laws embrace and encourage the availability of special measures to alleviate the effects of disadvantage among some groups of our society.
The fact that QUT offers a modest amount of dedicated space to assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students does not mean, in any way, a disadvantage for other students. To take this particular case in point, the Oodgeroo Unit at the Gardens Point campus houses 14 personal computers. Yet anyone who is remotely familiar with that campus will recognize that students have access to hundreds of personal computers, some tied to particular faculties, which are provided in prime learning spaces in adjacent or nearby buildings.
At a broader level, the concept of students networking as a cohort is a positive practice supported across the University, with QUT providing spaces that can be accessed in a similar way for a range of cohorts and purposes including higher degree research student space, parenting rooms, specialist laboratories and assigned spaces for various disciplines. And, in a sign of the times, we are developing dedicated spaces for use by student entrepreneurs and student start-up companies.
Providing physical space to assist different cohorts of students is only one element of the support framework. Like many other universities, QUT offers a wide range of scholarships designed to address the different achievements and needs of students. Many scholarships are awarded on the basis of academic merit, but even more are targeted to assisting students from disadvantaged backgrounds - particularly those with Indigenous, rural and regional backgrounds. What sets QUT apart in this respect is that we have established the first and easily the largest home-grown perpetual scholarship fund in Australia to address student disadvantage. In addition to the support of many of our alumni and friends, some 700 QUT staff are regular payroll donors to the Learning Potential Fund, which to date has accumulated a capital base of $42m.
With the current dispute, QUT very reluctantly finds itself providing the backdrop for a wider debate about the provisions of federal legislation. Our concern, on the other hand, has always been and remains focused on our staff and students, and to actively take steps to assist the resolution of matters. It is a sad reality of our times that, long after the headlines have gone and the legal advisers have secured their fees, the individuals involved – on all sides – may still be counting the personal cost to them.
Professor Peter Coaldrake is Vice-Chancellor of QUT
