Higher education should be for everyone

Celeste Liddle, NTEU National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Organiser

At the beginning of this year, in what was a spur of the moment decision, I applied to undertake a Masters degree. It had been a long time coming. Indeed, when I finished honours in 2002, I had planned to enter the workforce, enjoy not being utterly broke for a bit, then return to uni to begin my PhD. Seven years later, I finally realised that wasn’t going to happen so I enrolled in a graduate diploma to ‘dip my toes’ back in the world of academia with the view of continuing on. Again, that didn’t happen so eight years later, here I am again: only a couple of weeks away from submitting my final assessments for my Masters and seeing what I do next.

This year though has been a ‘unique’ year to study, to say the least. The impacts of COVID-19 on the sector have been not just trying, but simply devastating. I have not set foot in a classroom all year which, I have to admit, is one of the things I have always loved most about studying – the immersion within a learning environment. The other day I actually physically picked up a textbook. It was the first time I had read academic argument all year that had not been on a screen.

I’d had exposure to listening to lectures online before but attending online tutorials where everyone is a little square with a name on it and the opportunity to interact is non-existent is completely new. Essays remain the same arduous task they have always been but group assessment tasks prepared entirely via Zoom are a new form of hell. Struggling through this semester with both a bad neck and arm injury and ‘lockdown malaise’ has been rough.

All that being said though, that’s nothing compared to what I have seen the lecturers, tutors and support staff go through. I saw them, for example, have to move entire units online in mere days as governments shut down states. I have seen tutors try to co-ordinate discussions with students who are sometimes unresponsive and often dispersed across the world.

The Indigenous support centre has been in continuous contact to ensure that despite the situation, my journey and that of other Indigenous students is a smooth one. Navigating government systems designed to support uni students are hard enough without having to walk students through it virtually from home. So to see all these dedicated educators and support staff continue to give their utmost whilst the sector is attacked by the Government is devastating. I watched recently as the Government, with key support from some crossbenchers, passed the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020 and knew that the futures of many had been dashed.

It took me 20 years to admit that only reason I was able to go to university in the first place was because I received an Indigenous accommodation scholarship so was able to live on campus. I wasn’t deemed eligible for government student support until my fourth year, so I worked casual jobs to get through. I wasn’t a regional or remote student, but I was one of only a handful of Indigenous students across the state in that year who had finished Year 12 and had gone straight on to university.

The Government has now seen fit to double the fees on every single course that I have taken at uni. They’ve effectively ensured the next generation of students like me won’t get the opportunity to study. It’s great that they believe they will be supporting regional and remote Indigenous students but we can assume this is institutional racism at its finest.

Not only do the majority of Indigenous people live in cities, but even if they do guarantee HECS support for regional and remote Indigenous students, the majority – like I did – take courses which have just seen their fees doubled so the Government is really just saddling an already financially disadvantaged cohort with exorbitant debts. Why do so many Indigenous students study in these areas? Because not only are these areas usually the home of Indigenous studies courses but humanities and social sciences often lead to work in the community sector.

Then there’s the fact that the majority of Indigenous academics also work in these areas of study. With lower student numbers entering these study areas due to costs and wrongful perceptions of ‘job-readiness’ (wrongful because I myself have not been out of work since I finished uni the first time), what is the surety that these dedicated Indigenous knowledge providers will have jobs in the coming months?

Speaking more broadly than only Indigenous staff, can we also expect that the brilliant minds who have been teaching me and others in these areas will soon be joining the welfare queue we saw snaking around Centrelink buildings at the beginning of the COVID lockdown in March?

Every day of my life I have been thankful for those who have helped broaden my horizons, who have challenged me, who have taught me to think critically and have essentially played a major part in making me the person I am today. More than ever, I am thankful this year that they have somehow still managed to do so while facing some of the biggest challenges the sector has ever seen.

It therefore distresses me that thanks to governmental short-term thinking, elitism, ignorance and, yes, racism they are, as Senator Jacqui Lambie told the Senate in her moving speech opposing the Bill, telling future generations to ‘dream a little cheaper’.

Australia is on the precipice of another ‘brain drain’ and due to their continual attacks on higher education, I think the Government is too stupid to see it. ◆

This article was originally printed in Eureka Street, 29 October 2020.