the role of enabling courses and the enabling Loading

The Enabling Loading provides targeted funding within the CGS to universities for courses that provide additional academic support to students either as a pathway to award study or in addition to their regular classes. The funding is specifically attached to places in courses that prepare or assist a person to undertake a course that leads to a higher education award. Although enabling places can be offered as full fee–paying places, the majority of enabling students (97 per cent) are in Commonwealth supported places. Universities choosing to offer Commonwealth supported places in enabling courses are unable to charge a student contribution, as they do for undergraduate students, and so receive the Enabling Loading in lieu of student contributions and in addition to CGS funding for those Commonwealth supported places. Total estimated funding in 2010 for all enabling places was $66 million (including both the usual CGS amount for the unit of study and the Enabling Loading). The Enabling Loading accounts for $14 million of this amount.

Enabling courses are not specifically targeted to under-represented groups, but approximately 50 per cent of students enrolled in enabling courses are identified as being from several equity groups such as Indigenous students, regional and remote students and low SES status students, compared with 30 per cent of all domestic undergraduate enrolments. The remainder comprises students who for a range of reasons are underprepared. Those students are technically outside equity categories and, while not contributing to the 20 per cent low SES target, are nonetheless part of wider attainment goals.

secondary education). Each stream needs to be considered separately, as they have very different roles to play in supporting underprepared learners in higher education.

6.3.1 enabling courses as a pathway to higher education

Enabling courses as pathways

Students engaging in enabling courses as a pathway to higher education are those students who generally would not otherwise qualify for entry to an undergraduate course. There has been steady growth in the number of students accessing this option. In 2010, there were 4,061 students who had progressed to a Bachelors degree level course out of the 12,411 students who undertook a pathway enabling course in 2009.

As would be expected, students who have entered higher education from enabling pathway courses generally have lower educational outcomes compared with students who have entered from other pathways. However, it was not possible for the Panel to conduct extensive analysis of the effectiveness of enabling courses as a pathway to higher education as there was no reliable control group to assess whether enabling courses were a more effective means of overcoming education disadvantage than other options.

Alternative pathways to higher education

There are a number of pathways to higher education other than enabling courses. Although institutions set their own policies and arrangements, diplomas and advanced diplomas are often sufficient for entry into undergraduate courses. Many institutions offer vocational education and training (VET) pathways and qualifications, either collaboratively with TAFE providers and other training providers or on their own. For example, the University of Southern Queensland offers Foundation Diplomas in business, engineering, social science and science through its Open Access College.

Institutions also work with TAFE providers to offer dual award courses, which provide students with direct entry into an undergraduate course and credit for a full year of study after completing a linked VET award. Examples include the Diploma of Business/Bachelors of Business offered by the Central Queensland Institute of TAFE and the Central Queensland University and the Diploma of Nursing/ Bachelors of Nursing offered by the Southbank Institute of Technology and the University of the Sunshine Coast.

In some states, students may have the option of studying a Certificate IV in Adult Tertiary Preparation Program which provides an ATAR for entry to university.

There are also programs offered in conjunction with high schools, such as the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) program which allows high school students to study at USC and earn credit towards an undergraduate degree while still completing Years 11 and 12. At least one university also offers entry pathway programs in conjunction with adult re-entry schools, offering a one-year full-time program to prepare students for undergraduate study.

Finally, although not a prior study pathway to university study, most universities also offer special entry provisions. Students who have experienced educational disadvantage and had their academic results affected can apply for consideration of this disadvantage when applying for their studies. Disadvantage is normally defined as circumstances beyond the students’ control, such as lack of opportunity due to ethnic, cultural, gender, language, disability and health difficulties such as

hearing impairment or chronic medical conditions, and compassionate circumstances such as trauma, bereavement or relocation.

Most pathways to entry incur some form of cost to the student. For example, students undertaking a VET course are subject to the same course costs regardless of whether they will use that

course to qualify for entry to higher education, although some students may be eligible to access VET FEE-HELP. However, unlike enabling courses, these pathways also offer students a qualification and are generally counted as credit towards undergraduate study.

The role of enabling pathway courses in the tertiary sector

The place of enabling courses in the new tertiary sector is somewhat unclear. Enabling courses provide a pathway to university for disadvantaged learners, but numerous other pathways are available, including lower-level qualifications. The rationale for funding enabling courses in which students are exempt from contributing to the cost of the course contrasts to the funding of VET programs or other pathway courses where students gain a qualification on completion but course fees are charged. This reflects the respective responsibilities of state and territory governments and the Australian Government for VET and higher education, but the current cost differential could result in disadvantaged learners choosing less appropriate pathways based on financial considerations only.

Enabling courses are not part of the Australian Qualifications Framework and seem not to have been subject to a targeted review of effectiveness despite having existed since 1990. Since enabling courses were first introduced the VET – higher education interface has seen enormous changes. The role filled by pathway enabling courses may be diminishing or provided more effectively through other pathway models. A report by the Department of Education, Science and Training in 2004 which focused on Indigenous participation in higher education found that enabling courses had limited success in encouraging students to access higher education and suggested that VET-based enabling courses may be better targeted to meet the needs of underprepared learners rather than university-based courses (DEST 2004).

The Panel recommends that the Government should review the role of enabling courses in the tertiary education sector in a way that includes an assessment of the effectiveness of enabling courses compared with other forms of pathway to higher education. It will be essential in the new demand driven environment to ensure that public funding is provided in the most effective manner to support students to enrol in higher education, and to encourage students to make decisions about appropriate pathways that are not based on financial considerations.

6.3.2 enabling courses as a support mechanism for

disadvantaged learners

The second stream of enabling courses is for those students who generally are qualified to enter higher education, particularly from secondary education, but who are academically underprepared and need additional help with their studies. Of all students in enabling courses in 2009, those taking them as concurrent remedial courses accounted for nearly 36 per cent. The total number of students undertaking concurrent enabling courses is relatively low, 6,887 out of a total of 19,298 enabling students.

Unlike enabling students in pathway programs, it is possible to undertake reasonable analysis of outcomes for concurrent enabling students by using as a control group students who did not

same ATAR. This analysis suggests that enabling courses are successful in increasing the retention of students in higher education. Across nearly all ATAR ranks and types of pathways, students who took an enabling course have better retention than comparable non-enabling cohorts. For example, of students with an ATAR below 40 in 2009, 86 per cent of those who undertook enabling and undergraduate courses concurrently remained in study in 2010, compared with 82 per cent not in enabling courses.

It is possible to speculate as to other differences between the two cohorts that might have led to certain students perhaps at greater risk of withdrawing being encouraged to undertake enabling courses, but this information was not available. In addition, students who undertake enabling study concurrently have consistently higher retention rates than students accepted on the same basis who do not undertake enabling study. This effect is particularly pronounced for students who are accepted on the basis of VET study, with 85 per cent of these students retained in study in 2010 if they completed an enabling course concurrently, compared with 78 per cent if they did not. It is interesting that students undertaking concurrent enabling study generally have lower progress rates than students who do not complete enabling study. This is to be expected as students who complete enabling courses are typically less academically prepared than those who do not. It would normally be expected that low progress rates would be associated with low retention rates. A situation where enabling students fail their first-year units of study more often but are more likely to continue on to second year may suggest that enabling courses are providing more than just academic preparation and also help the adjustment to the university environment.

Given this evidence, the Panel considered that although the place of enabling courses as a pathway to higher education needs to be reviewed, enabling courses as remedial courses have a clear and important place in retaining students in higher education. These courses are likely to become more important as universities enrol increasingly academically underprepared and educationally disadvantaged students. Enabling courses have been identified as ‘essential if the sector is to meet the Federal Government’s access and participation goals’ (University of Newcastle, submission no. 80, p.1). Other submissions made similar comments. Additionally, a paper prepared for the Group of Eight in 2009 identified that increased employer demand for qualitative skills, especially for engineering degrees, means universities may need to increase their remedial enabling load to support students to succeed in a range of courses, particularly in mathematics and science (Brown 2009). It is therefore important that the funding for enabling places be appropriate and set at a level that does not discourage institutions from offering these courses to all students who would benefit.

6.3.3 Clarifying the role of the enabling Loading

Under the current model, the Enabling Loading is paid as a per capita amount, but the total amount of funding is fixed. As enrolments in enabling courses have increased, the loading paid per student has decreased. Since 2005, increased enrolments in enabling courses have resulted in a steady reduction in the amount of enabling funding per student place. Compared with $3,592 in 2005 when the total pool was $12.2 million the rate per EFTSL was estimated at $2,044 in 2011 when indexation brought the total pool to just under $14 million. This was a reduction of 43 per cent in the rate per student over this period.

Several submissions to the Panel raised concerns that the structure of the Enabling Loading and the reduction in value over time were disincentives for universities to offer Commonwealth supported places in enabling courses. In its submission, the University of Newcastle (submission no. 80, p. 4) argued that by capping the funding for Commonwealth supported places providers were

The funding pressures on enabling courses are likely to become more acute under the demand driven system. Although enabling enrolments are likely to increase, the total funding amount for the Enabling Loading will not change.

The recommended review may require more extensive longitudinal data collection than is presently available. In the interim the Government should set the per capita level of Enabling Loading to the 2010 per capita rate, indexed for subsequent years. Ideally the per capita rate would apply to concurrent enrolments only while a review of enabling pathway courses is undertaken, but the Panel realises the administrative burden this may create. However, the Panel does give urgency to conducting a review of the pathways so that a final set of arrangements for enabling courses and the Enabling Loading can be implemented as soon as possible.